Drift Pop Development
Initial ideation
On Friday, January 24th, 2025, the Global Game Jam that this game was created for began. My goals for the jam were to create another strong portfolio piece while focusing on creating something with a good amount of “Juice” that feels satisfying to play, while also developing my art style further. Around 6pm when the jam began, the theme was revealed to us, being “Bubble”.
I spent the first few hours of the jam thinking about what I could make. I had a few ideas, but one stuck out to me. I had recently played through Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy, and recalled sections in which Mario would enter a bubble, and the player would have to guide him through various obstacles by using the Wii remote to blow the bubble around. I thought that making a game like this mechanic would be great for a game jam for a few reasons:
- Building a game around a simple mechanic helps with scope for completing a jam game. After creating the initial mechanic, I can add as many stages as the time frame allows (I ended up with time for 8 levels).
- I thought programming the required physics system would make for some good experience and a fun challenge. I’ve found that I often tend to subconsciously avoid designing games with complex physics systems due to my lack of skill in that department, and this game would help me improve.
- I wanted to develop my art style further. After reading the theme I had a lot of ideas graphically, using a shader like I did with the walls in Psycho-Kin for the bubbles, having them reveal more of the background image as they slide across the screen.
With these reasons and a plan in my head I began work on the game. My aim for the Friday night was to get the main mechanics of the game implemented, so I could spend as much time as possible designing and implementing levels.
Game Jam
Friday
After ideation, I began programming. After following the proper procedures and setting up a GitHub repository, I got to work. After a lot of tweaking, I managed to get a good physics system working, and then began working on a few different obstacles and mechanics I could use to build a set of decent levels. By late in the night, I had it done and went to sleep.
Saturday
This morning was spent on polish. I spent some time fixing a few issues with the collision system and started working on the graphics. I wanted a cool background to use in the levels, so I took a photo of my bathroom sink and dithered it to create a nice background for the stage. I also made the blocks I was building the game out of blend nicely together and gave the bubble some nice animations. With this done, I began making levels. By the end of the day, I had designed, implemented and tested (with the help of some friends) eight levels. Exhausted, I decided this was enough for the game jam, and I would spend tomorrow setting up the entry page.
Sunday
I spent a Sunday winding down. After waking up I went to the gym, then when I returned, I added some final levels of polish. A new main menu and some nice art, and a friend who I had asked to do music for the project came through, and I programmed in some nice adaptive music into the game that has different instruments that come in as the bubble moves faster. Around 12, I compiled the game project and began setting up the page on the Global Game Jam website and on itch.io. This ended up being a good call, as I managed to dodge the site crashing as many people tried to upload their projects later in the day.
Reflection
I’m quite proud of this project. It felt good to be able to put together something nice in a short amount of time, and I hope that it helps to show my skills as a designer on my portfolio. It was the first game jam I had completed in a few years, and it helped me get my confidence up. I also feel like this game really helped me develop my art style a little more, as some past jam games I’ve made have struggled to find their visual identity, whereas this one has a clear vision in mind. I’m also happy with the programming aspect as well, as I repeatedly overestimated how long it would take for me to get things done, and I finished in far less of a rush. The repository for the game is public, and all the code at different stages of development over the weekend can be viewed here.
Gameplay screenshots
