The game jam

For the first time in history of our little indie studio, 3 of us (plus an ex member of the team!) finally had the time to jam together! Friday late afternoon at 18:00 the theme was announced, Fog. We did what we always do and had a brainstorming session over a glass of beer at a nearby pub, our initial ideas were:

1. maneuver a helicopter in foggy mountains to go save and collect climbers in danger
2. operating a fog machine at a disco, having to fog up the people you want to save from the bouncers
3. Lighthouse operator/Ship captain, having to navigate on the foggy sea among rocks

That was the first round of brainstorming. We’ve picked up the health habit of never feeling the pressure to choose an idea too soon, so the session carried on, and we talked about the ideas. Our brainstorming process composes of:

• quick sketches
• communication
• new ideas are welcome
• disagreement is welcome, followed by a healthy dose of questions

In the second round, after a bit of tangent banter, we go back to the ideas and talk about them, it was there when we got the idea:

• You’re the engine driver of a train that travels through fog, transports passengers and has to keep them save, station are places where you manage your train cars, and during the levels you have operate the main engine turret.
• You manage your train, actively shoot during levels and upgrade/buy/sell wagons between them.

We all took to the idea because it checked all the marks:

• player fantasy
• strong visual
• grokkable gameplay
• clear game loop
• scope(can be done in 39 hours)

The initial names we thought of were: Rails of Fog, Fog me please! and Fog on rails, we settled on Fogpiercer toward the end of the jam and the name had stuck due to its connotation, further empowering the player fantasy.

Here’s a quick visual target screen our art-member put together to set up the visual direction for us

End of the jam and features of the game

39 hours later, the game was playable! We uploaded the latest version of the build some 50 seconds before the deadline and viola! The lovely moment of satisfaction, sleep-deprivation and pure joy. The was looking good:

• 4 designed levels
• A train that can be upgraded
• 2 types of wagons that can be bought and put on the train
• one enemy type
• volumetric fog visuals
• music + a couple of sfx (we really need to work on our game jam audio processes)

and then we cheated…*

…nah, we wouldn’t but what we did do is spent a couple of extra hours after the jam to polish up a couple of things, mainly we changed how the upgrade screen works, by the end of the jam, once the level is done, the game paused and a full screen pop up appeared, music stopped, nothing exactly pleasant.

We put in a little extra effort and made the experience of upgrading your train a little more diegetic, the train never stops, it’s just that the mode available to the player does, and upgrade happen realtime in 3D.

That’s it for the game, give it a play!