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Cosmic Wandering Takes The Show At itch.io VR Jam

Cosmic WanderingA couple of weeks ago, a few local developers took part in the itch.io VR jam. The goal of the jam was to make something for a VR headset that fit the theme of “shapeshift”. To compete, Brady Wright of Tekton Games teamed up with Mack Savala of Critical Code and Jordan Newman to make Cosmic Wandering.

The game has a simple premise. “Wander on a cosmic journey through a psychedelic environment where you must solve puzzles which cause the world around you to change shape.” You can see a video of the game in action below.

We contacted the developers behind the game to get their thoughts on making the game. When asked about the game jam experience, they had this to say.

We really love doing game jams as they are not only challenging, but really force you to be creative about design decisions.

When we learned the theme our game had to follow, it was a bit daunting. But pretty soon, we settled on a concept that seemed to really resonate with each team member, and we eventually developed a shared vision for what we were going to make. – Brady Wright

This game jam was a roller coaster. I took many hours out for personal reasons, but through it all we maintained a team. Our team was working remotely which caused disadvantages when it came to testing in-game; that didn’t hold us back though. – Mack Savala

This sentiment is shared with many others we have communicated with about game jams. They have each explained the experience of a game jam helps to develop a team building atmosphere and get the creative juices flowing. We have to say, they did a great job.

They were pretty pleased with the result of the jam too.

I was really surprised by how aesthetically compelling the final result was that we came up with. I’d really like to develop the concept further. While the time constraints of the game jam meant we couldn’t get as sophisticated with our game as we would like, now I would really like to spend some time refining, expanding, and really doing the concept justice.

When we began, I didn’t really expect us to have much of a chance at competing since there are so many other talented developers out there. But after we wrapped the project up, I felt really good about what we had managed to make. Now I really think we’ve got a shot.- Brady Wright

Overall, the itch.io community was pleased with the results as well. Based on community voting, Cosmic Wandering won first prize, which was a professional license for Unity.

If you want to try out Cosmic Wandering and see more of what Brady has to show, he will be putting on a VR presentation at this week’s Oklahoma Game Developer meetup.

 

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