Summary
5 members
Roles: Lead Programmer – Level Design
Date: 2022 (2 days – EMMI Gamejam 2022)
Tools: Unity, C#, WebGL, Git, Draw.io
Distinction: Best game out of the 4 projects
Mention awarded by Ubisoft Bordeaux, Shiro Games and Asobo Studio
Thief Tales is a multi-genre game in which you will relive all the events of a bank robbery perpetrated by your grandfather. Through the different memories, your way of playing will be determinant in the development of the story. Astute, precise, and fast will be the qualities required to triumph and succeed in the heist of the century.
My Contribution
Thief Tales is about telling a story to the player. To do this, we decided to create a set of mini-games that chronicle the grandfather’s journey to the ultimate heist. For this, there is a first scene composed only of dialogues where the grandfather talks to his grandchildren and 5 mini-games (opening the safe, stealing the money, attempting to steal a car, escaping by car, and escaping on foot).
On this project, I was mainly the lead developer of the team. We were 3 programmers, and I, in addition to coordinating the team, developed 3 mini-games by myself. Having only 48 hours, this means that each mini-game only took me about 10 hours to create and integrate the assets. I also did some level design by balancing and building the levels of the games (Stealing money and Escape on foot).
Tell a story
To tell the player a story, we decided from the start that each game would have an impact. For example, if the player is unable to open the bank vault, they will be unable to steal the money! So, he will have to run away directly.
Visual details were also added to reinforce this idea! If the player manages to escape with the money, an item hanging on the wall will show his success! Conversely, if he does not succeed, he will have a reminder of his defeat on the wall. This was completely in keeping with the theme of the Gamejam: « Memories ». The diagram below summarizes the different state and visual/narrative elements associated with each story
Organization
I created the EMMI Jam 2022 edition by managing the communication aspects with the students and the sponsors. It’s a Gamejam gathering students from 2 computer science schools in Bordeaux. The project is sponsored by the biggest video game studios in Bordeaux, namely 𝗨𝗯𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘅, 𝗔𝘀𝗼𝗯𝗼 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗼 and 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗼 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀.
The event allowed in one weekend the creation of 4 games with more than twenty participants.
What I learned
This was my first two-day gamejam and my first game with a team of five people. I realized how vital it is to communicate accurately so as not to waste time. It was also my first face-to-face gamejam and I can say that it is much more interesting! As for my skills, I was able to measure my progress on Unity. In just two days, I built three game prototypes and was able to lead a small team of developers. I really enjoyed this experience.
Finally, I realized that you should not be too ambitious for a Gamejam. The constraint « The game must start and end with different genres » really inspired us and we chose to realize the limitation to the maximum. However, creating five mini-games was a very risky project, and we almost didn’t succeed. I will not forget this lesson for my next projects: quality over quantity!
