14b

February 26, 2014

A brief detour from science, here…

Last month, I took part in the Global Game Jam, a challenge where you have a single weekend (48 hrs) to make a game.  Game Jams are a great way to practice game-making – because time constraints and sleep deprivation work wonders!

At my particular site, there were about 80 people who came together, splitting up into 4-5 person teams.  The theme?  “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”  Pretty abstract.  I was pulling for ‘particle physics.’  Oh, well.

I had the chance to work with an amazing team, none of whom had met before the weekend.  There were 5 of us, and everyone brought some special skills to the team.  We had Jennifer Lay doing art; Nick Bergen making the music; John Wolff as designer; and Vinny DaSilva and I doing programming.  (See the credits page in the game for a rad picture of us.)  We had a lot of laughs, and pulled together a surprisingly good game.  (Most game jam games are pretty rough, but ours has a beginning, middle, and an end, and very few bugs.  Rad!)

Our game?  14b.

What happened in there?!

The game is a mystery, where you are the detective.  Someone’s been murdered, and it’s up to you to figure out who did it.  You have some folders of evidence you can look at, witness reports of the scene, and clues that you can ask each of the witnesses about.  Each witness sees the scene in a different way, focusing on different details, and bringing their own perspective.  And you need them all to figure out the caper.

We’ve posted the game online, so you can go check it out.  Who do *you* think committed the crime?  Why?

-Andy