Incursion

Incursion was my submission in the 24 hour KSU 2016 Amateur Game Jam. I made the game itself in GameMaker Studio, the music in Famitracker, and the sound effects in BFXR. The jam was 24 hours, I made the game by myself, and I barely slept at all. Download Link.

There’s not too much to talk about in the process here. I was familiar with GameMaker before from fiddling around with it a ton in high school, but I never really made anything notable (besides 1 school project over Romeo and Juliet, but that was 1 room) or at all substantial. I had to look up how to use the program again the day before the jam.

I essentially just sat down, made a plan in around half an hour over what features, enemies, and assets were needed, then punched them all out bit by bit. I remember it started at around 6PM and I had gotten each of the enemies and bosses working by just about everything by 3 AM when I went to sleep. I awoke at 9 the next morning, put them all together in a playable fashion, made health items and menus, then composed a little song, wrote a little bit of flavor text in the menu, and slapped it onto Itch right on the 5 PM deadline.

I’m rather fond of it. It’s small, only mildy entertaining, and pretty buggy (health bars are wrong, bosses should loop, sound effects interrupt, etc) but I think it’s got a lot of flavor to it – I made every little piece by hand and I think it shows. I appreciated being able to get back into music composition for it – I had wanted to dual major in Music Theory, but don’t think I can find the time – and I had fun writing the flavor and making the art just so in a way that all fit together. In the end I got Best Overall, with Best Audio and Best Narrative to boot. Most importantly, my friends all enjoyed it too. It was a fun project and I feel a little warm whenever I think about it.