Check out our game: https://noskyinteractive.itch.io/trigger-rush

I feel like for most gamers out there, we have all dreamed at some point of making our own video game. However, dipping your toes into the world of game dev is rather daunting. There is so much to learn, and programming even the most basic features takes work and dedication to learn. I was definitely one of those kids. I recall wanting to major in computer science just to become a game developer. However, that goal quickly faded as I eventually realized that the game development industry is almost slave labor-like with tight deadlines, unforgivable crunch periods, and a severe lack of benefits. I eventually pivoted away from this and opted to go a more stable route, IT & cybersecurity. I don’t regret my decision, but I do have to admit, I have always wondered what working in the world of video games would be like….

Living the Childhood Dream

After my layoff, the journey to getting back into the tech field is a rough one in 2024. I worked rigorously to further my cybersecurity learning through a plethora of homelabs, training exercises and online courses in order to gain more talking points during interviews. However, it was also during this time that I got to venture outside my area of expertise and touch a different field, game development. In late July, I received an invite from my good friend Connor to team up with him, his brother Kyle and my own brother Alex in an event called a Game Jam, a competition-based event where individuals group up into teams and are given an allotted amount of time to build a game from scratch. This sounded like a fantastic opportunity. For me and Kyle (also unemployed), it was a chance to add something concrete to fill in the gaps in our resume. For my brother Alex who is starting at Cal Poly Pomona, it gave him an opportunity to build his technical portfolio as he searches for an internship.

The Game Jam

The event we joined was called the Game Maker’s Tool Kit (GMTK) Game Jam. We were given 4 days to build a game from the ground up and post it for the competition. As with most game jams, a theme would be given to base your game around. This year’s theme was “Built to Scale.”

The theme is supposed to encourage teams to get creative and this particular theme definitely did the trick. We found that there were many ways to interpret the phrase “Built to Scale.” I joined the event’s Discord server and saw various outside the box ideas. Some teams thought of sizing, others thought of climbing or scaling a wall, and there were instances of idea that were even more outside the box such as a play on music scales. Our team came up with multiple ideas ranging from a platformer puzzle game where you shrink or grow objects, to a mundane fish market game where you scale fishes. I even proposed an outrageous story based game called “The Bureau of Based Decisions” where you work as a consultant influencing story beats by rating character decisions on scale of 1-10. In the end, we went with a simple but creative idea, a top-down shooter featuring an alien who can munch on enemies to grow bigger.

For those unfamiliar with game development, most, if not all games are created using something called a game engine, a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games. We chose to use Godot, a free game engine that is viewed as “the new kid on the block” of game engines. The process of collaborating on a tech project was predictably full of headaches. Coding projects in general are complex, but a new layer of complexity is added when multiple people work on the same coding project as you don’t always know who is working on what. There were times where our code would conflict with one another’s work and we would have to dial it back which led to some frustrations as there were times where we had to redo our work. And as with most technical projects, there is the troubleshooting and bug fixing. I was reminded once again why I don’t enjoy the prospect of having coding as a career. There were times where I spent 5 hours attempting to fix a bug only to realize the solution was simple. It felt like the solution could’ve been found in 5 minutes instead of 5 hours if only I was better at noticing things. After grinding for 3 days and pulling an all-nighter, we were able to get our product out with 4 hours left to spare.

Our game

Our concept is simple, you are an alien crash landing on a planet full of sentient candy out to kill you. We tried to get creative by incorporating a munch mechanic that causes you to grow the more you eat. This was our way of fitting into the “Built to Scale” theme. For our first game jam, I think this turned out quite well. Originally, we wanted to add more to the game such as a shop system to buy upgrades, a wave system to give the player a sense of progression and perhaps even some boss battles. The product we have put forth is bare bones, but that is what happens when you only have 4 days to make this. Our game doesn’t even have volume sliders or a pause button. Hopefully these are all features we can implement in the future. For now, the judging period has begun and we cannot push updates to our game for another 10 days. But this is a project that I hope to continue on in the future.

Go Indie?

I mentioned earlier how I chose not to go for a game development career due to the nature of the industry being so harsh. But there is one avenue that I didn’t think of, being an indie game dev. With success stories such as Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Lethal Company etc. becoming an indie dev has become more sought out. You get to do what you want without the constraints of corporate higher ups breathing down your back. Plus, with the advances in free open-source tools, budding game developers have much more at their disposal now than they did in the past. While I still plan to be in cybersecurity for my career, I think being a part-time game developer as a hobby would be a great way to build myself out in the future.