Writer and Game Designer
Jest or Die
The Project
My team’s submission for the 2024 Global Game Jam. Developed in only 48 hours, following the theme of ‘Make Me Laugh’.
Build a team of elite jesters and perform for your King! If he likes your style of comedy, you’ll live to see another day. If he finds your performance lacking… prepare to say ‘hello’ to the snake pit!
Writer
Defined several genres of ‘jokes’ for the jesters to tell, drawing from real comedy genres.
Created over 10 hireable ‘jesters’ for the player to engage with, named and styled after real life clowns and comedians.
Wrote an introductory letter to set the comedic tone.
Wrote over 20 jokes for various styles of comedy.
The Work
Game Designer
Assisted the team in refining the ‘jester selection’ mechanic.
Pitched several game ideas and contributed to overall design conversation.
Assisted in asset implementation and functionality.
The Lessons
This project was created on a very short deadline, with only 48 total hours spent on it from conception to completion. I began this project by assisting in the initial brainstorm session for what the vision of the project would be, and further contributed to designing several core mechanics.
Most of my contributions to the project were related to writing, whether it be jokes or simple descriptions for each jester. As the time passed by, I assisted with several tasks to alleviate pressure from the programming and art teams, all the while continuing to write until we had reached a sufficient quota of jesters and jokes.
One of my main takeaways from this project was how smoothly the process ran, due to the entire team being willing to assist each other at any time. Any roadblocks encountered were minimal, and the team was all on the same page regarding what the end product should look like. Due to this, we were able to create a functional prototype with hours left to spare, and we spent the final few moments before submission polishing the mechanics and several art assets.