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Tag: Space Driller

Surviving A Team Based Game Jam – Tips From The Space Driller Team

Game jams have been growing in popularity among indie developers and even professional game developers. They are a great opportunity to step away from your current project(s) and comfort zone and make a game you might not have tried making otherwise. They can expand your skillset, your creativity and your career.

With this potential, it is often necessary to take a further step and try performing a game jam with a team rather than as a solo effort. But how does that work? How can you go from working alone to working with a team overnight? Luckily, we have had one such team recently who made a wonderful game for Ludum Dare, the Space Driller team, who took the time to share some tips.

When writing about the game last time, I asked some questions about the team experience and received some great responses from each member. Despite not all of them having worked together before, these guys really pooled their talents together and came out with a great game. So what made this possible? Let’s find out.

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From Beneath Ludum Dare Comes Space Driller

Space Driller Made For Ludum DareGame Developer Josh Maggard is no stranger to game jams. As of this last Ludum Dare, he has participated in four of them. We wrote about his last one, Time War, last year after the jam ended. That game was pretty fun, but brutally hard, at least for me. For his latest entry, Josh has held true to the fun part while keeping the brutal difficulty toned down a bit.

His latest Ludum Dare game is called  Space driller.  The theme for the jam was “under the surface” and he held true to that theme quite well. Space Driller stars a space miner who had been separated from his team and lost in a massive system of caves and tunnels. Armed with only his trusty drill, this miner must find the path out of the tunnel and back to freedom.

It was made over a 72 hour period with Josh acting as game designer and programmer and working with two others, Dan Konves, artist and designer, and Tyler Collins, music and sound effects. This small team of developers created a great looking and sounding game. The music and sound effects really pulled you into this dark and lonely cave while the visuals brought up levels of nostalgia for adventure platforming game of old. As many of the Ludum Dare commenters have stated, this game’s roots in Metroidvania style games are firmly planted and growing well.

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