Harold Sotomayor

Rough character animations can be worked on while adding polish
Prior to Flim Flam Fernandez I had a tendancy to finish my sprite sheets before I ever handed them in to the programmers. If any adjustments had to be made they were done so after the completed animations were already functioning in the game. This method kept the programmers waiting as they had nothing to work with until the sprite sheets were completed (which could be a long wait…).

At Flim Flam Fernandez I switched over to creating very rough sprite sheets of stick figure animations that would act as placeholders for the finished art later on. I know that this was hardly a revolutionary discovery – it is something I should have been doing from the start – but it was not until Flim Flam Fernandez that I adopted that mindset. What forced this change in my sprite sheet making attitude was that the plasticine characters were being very uncooperative and they required a lot of work-up in Photoshop afterwards.

Stick figures are generally enough to see what an animation will look like as well as how many frames are needed. Frames take time to produce so any indication that a certain amount will do can save a lot of time in the long run.

Poor balance and/or incomplete gameplay
Regrettably, Flim Flam Fernandez as it was when we were finished was a poorly balanced game that did not live up to expectations. The potential is there though and should we ever wish to truely finish it, it could become quite the enjoyable experience.

The biggest problem with Flim Flam Fernandez is that the hide and seek feature is heavily skewed towards the Queen since she only needs to walk by Fernandez, regardless of whether he is hiding or not, to win the game. There are two (or was it three?) routes to the bedroom (the King’s goal) and so the game pretty much comes down to which route the Queen ends up taking. If the player controlling the Queen guesses correctly it is a guaranteed loss for the King.

A few simple changes could improve Flim Flam considerably:
- The King’s turn should be shorter than the Queen’s (although more paths to the goal would be necessary)
- The Queen should have to actually “check” or “look” behind objects to locate the King (instead of simply walking by them)
- Both characters should leave evidence of where they have been (knocked over items, tilted furnature, etc.)

Some of these ideas were, if I recall correctly, meant to be included but had to be cut due to time constraints. Flim Flam Fernandez still has, I believe, a lot of potential to be a very enjoyable two-player game. It is simple, easy to play and has a very low learning curve. Should we ever revisit Flim Flam (or a derivative game) it may well become the excellent game we originally envisioned. Fourty-eight hours simply was not enough to do this game justice.

Warm bread is best (hesitation kills…)
One of the best moments in the 2010 Global Game Jam was sometime in the middle when Beth Nuyens (character designer for Marvin’s Mittens) visited us with a batch of delicious, freshly baked bread. I made the enormous error of not pigging out when the bread was soft, fresh and warm – I only had a taste. I cannot remember why I held back (most likely to save it for others or for later) but when I returned to the bread many hours later, it was hard and cold, as bread is liable to become. The moment of awesomeness had passed me by. I’m still hungry for it…

"A mighty leap!" Fernandez would be nothing without Mike Keogh's hilarious voice work

Competition and innovation
The first Game Jam (2009) was rather small and humble with only eleven or so participants. This time around we had an entire room full of people working on various different games. Not only were there more entrants but the games themselves were almost all innovative and original. One such game, my favorite entrant, was called “Undooring the lock” which reversed typical game mechanics in clever ways (the title says it all). There was also a game that included many intentional “glitches” as a way of progressing within the game – it was almost a commentary on how unintentional bugs can be exploited within certain games.

This was a Game Jam to be proud of – creativity was abundant and each game had its own “thing” to show. I am glad that Flim Flam Fernandez was awarded our desired “best game” title (largely in part, according to the judges, to its plasticine visuals) but regardless, the Game Jam as a whole was an excellent adventure well worth taking.

Game Jam 2011+
Finally, I should mention that I did not participate in this year’s Game Jam. I may return for next year’s Game Jam although I am not sure in what capacity.

Before I start giving next year’s Game Jam any real thought though, there is that other project – the one that I have neglected for so long – that I should be getting back to…

So much for getting back to posting regularly…

One year after Robots and Girl came Flim Flam Fernandez at the 2010 Global Game Jam. I approached Flim Flam with a different attitude than I did Robots and Girl – an attitude that seemed to be mirrored by my new team. Last time was more of a discovery experience for me – I did not know that we were going to be judged – whereas this time we set out with the explicit goal of being chosen as the best team/game there. The team I was part of this time was mostly made up of the same teammates (“Breakfall”) I have been working on Marvin Mittens with prior to the Game Jam.

Worth reading is Mike Keogh’s write-up.

A solid foundation is necessary for a good game
Due to my experiences with the previous Game Jam where our “finished” game was anything but, I tried to push the idea of creating a very small, simple, but well-polished game this time around. I was also hoping that we would come up with an idea quickly to maximize the time available for actual development.

An unfortunate consequence of such a mindset was that I felt so pressured for time right from the beginning that I could only come up with basic, lame ideas for a potential game. Outside of using plasticine and the Marvin’s Mittens engine, my team did not come in with any solid gameplay ideas (unlike my team for Robots and Girl who had at least the ninja rope mechanic ready to be used). We ending up spending quite a bit of time (two hours?) discussing and debating what our gameplay should consist of. I was so worried about how much time we were burning that I eventually gave up trying to push for a good idea and was willing to work on any game, even if it was something I would have ended up disliking.

Thankfully, salvation came from Jason Nuyens who came up with the basis for the hide and seek game that would eventually become Flim Flam Fernandez. It was an idea that we all seemed to love and, despite the amount of time spent beforehand, it was well worth spending to get an idea that the entire team could be proud of.

Novel ideas
The big lesson learned (for me at least) is that trying to rush head-first into an idea may not be worth the time saved. There were some pretty crummy game ideas being thrown about before Jason brought up the hide and seek (Flim Flam) game. Good ideas need time to be nurtured and inspected. In fact, that seems to be the entire point of the Global Game Jams, as constantly stated in its promotional material; Game Jams are there so that game developers can foster new ideas and experiment with design.

Thinking back, our (or at least my) initial outlook on that Game Jam was contrary to the “spirit” of the event. We went in to win instead of experimenting and developing novel ideas. Thankfully, perhaps undeservably so, we ending up doing both.

Plasticine is very difficult to work with
I modeled King Fernandez and partly modeled (making her more animateable) the Queen (whose name escapes me right now…) as well as fully animating both of them. Well, more like “animating” them (their largest sprite sheets are four frames) since the models proved to be extremely cumbersome and unwieldy. King Fernandez in particular seemed to enjoy falling apart – his poor head fell on the floor several times. I suspect that the increasing heat of the room (computers on for three days + a room full of people = heat) added to my troubles as arms fell off and faces occasionally had to be replaced. By the end, both models were filthy and beaten up. We ending up giving them to the Carleton University Game Jam host, Ali Arya, who hopefully was not overly disappointed by their poor state.

Flim Flam Fernandez was my first experience in animation with plasticine. I can fully understand why plasticine is rarely used. Any motion that involves unsupported weights (such as lifting a character’s arm) becomes a hassle as those poses that would not work by themselves must be supported by something that must then be Photoshopped out.

The lesson learned here, as with the one above, is that good planning is paramount for things to work smoothly afterwards. I did not provide King Fernandez with a strong enough frame (err, did I even give him a skeleton/frame?) nor did I model him with motion in mind. The Queen was modeled by Mike Keogh but I had to make some adjustments to her so that she could be more posable.

Part 3: …we’ll never run out of trouble.

I. Inconsistent background/foreground art

Andrew Wilman and I each worked on different backgrounds/foregrounds, each in our own style without ever talking to each other about how we would go about doing things. The result is that the background/foregrounds that he created are visually very different from mine. He used either Adobe Illustrator or Flash with thick, strong black outlines and a simpler, cartoony colouring scheme. I used Photoshop exclusively with thinner outlines and softer shading. The result was a horrible clash of styles that convey all too clearly the complete lack of communication between the two artists.

It was an important lesson to learn: art consistency starts long before anything is actually drawn. Communication is key, as is actually observing the art assets as they are being produced. We did not take the time to look at each other’s assets until long after they were finish, which by then was too late.

I should also note that the entryway’s background has some weird Photoshop filter applied to it. I have no idea how that happened (I was probably experimenting) but I only noticed it after it was in the game.

II. Magneto shield

When the two robots are in close proximity to each other, they strongly repel each other and a force field effect is shown around each of them. When asked to create said force field I took inspiration from my memories of the force field that Magneto uses in some of the Capcom fighting games.

Unfortunately, sleep deprived as I was, I mis-remembered the force field as having a much more pronounced, almost vein-like, electric effect than it actually did. That is not to say that I was actively trying to replicate Magneto’s force field effect but the force field that I created was overly noisy and veiny instead of the desired sleek look that Magneto’s had.

I did not have enough time to fix them, but still, I wish that they looked a bit better given their prominence in the game.

III. Time management on my assets (too much attic not enough anything else)

THE lesson to learn at a Game Jam is time management and allocation based on priority. With Robots and Girl, I spent far more time on the Attic than on my other backgrounds. While a lot of that time can be said to have been spent experimenting with different styles/lighting, which is productive and is really the whole point of the Game Jam experience, so much time was spent on that one picture that the other backgrounds had to be rushed to completion. It shows.
The worst part is that most of the attic is not even shown.

IV. Too difficult/annoying

This problem was a consequence of not having any time to play-test the game, particularly with people who were not part of the Robots and Girl development team. The game, mostly because of the repulsion between the robots and the fine control needed to properly utilize their special abilities, was difficult in a frustrating manner. Watching the judges play the game was painful and mildly embarrassing. It was not long before we had to take the controllers away from them and play the game ourselves so that we could show them what the rest of the game looked like.

The difficulty could have been offset by making platforms larger and more accessible or by lowering the intensity of the robot’s repulsion field. The attic level in particular is brutal with a series of vertical platforms that are a nightmare to traverse (totally my fault since I was the once that created that level’s layout). Most of the difficulty is a result of the two robots pushing each other off of platforms. The repulsion effect can be useful in gathering hidden macaronis, but more often than not it is a source of falling off of platforms.

V. Fishing for compliments…

By far the most memorable moment of the entire Game Jam for me was when the judges were reviewing our game. One of the judges was from Magmic Games, a cell phone game development company that I wanted to work for as a pixel artist. I was proud of my little robots and I hoped to impress the Magmic representative enough to at least get his business card. My mini-strategy was to fish a compliment out of him by insinuating that my animations still needed work. The expectation was that he would then correct me by stating that the robots are excellent and do not need any improvement.

It didn’t exactly work as planned….

Epic fail

Regardless, Game Jam was a great experience and I strongly recommend it to anybody who is interested in game development. I’m proud of our ugly little game and how much we accomplished in such a short amount of time. Diving head-first into animation via my little robots really kick-started my work on Marvin’s Mittens and pretty much everything I have worked on since.