Tag Archives: Pixel Art

Airlocked!

Posted on by

After coming 5th in our first game jam, we were feeling pretty confident. Dangerous, that.

Airlocked! was our entry for Make A Game, The Game Jam, where the theme was “Connected.” We went with a dual interpretation–aliens that are physically connected to each other when they multiply, and a power grid that connects the ship’s systems. You’re the last crew member on the USS Arkenfeld, and the ship has an alien infestation. The aliens multiply every time you open a door, and you can only flush them out through the airlock if they’re all touching each other. So you’re running around, opening doors, repairing junction boxes to keep the power flowing, and trying to herd aliens into a corner.

Great concept. Really clever puzzle mechanics. The kind of thing that sounds brilliant when you’re explaining it at 1am on day two of the jam.

The execution, though? The game more or less didn’t work. We had to make a silent YouTube tutorial video because players couldn’t figure out what was happening–which, in hindsight, is a pretty clear sign that something has gone wrong with your game design. If you need a video to explain a puzzle game, you haven’t made a puzzle game. You’ve made a riddle with a download link.

Built in Unity, runs in the browser. It’s pixel art, it looks decent, and if you squint hard enough you can see the good game hiding underneath the bad UX. One of those “great on paper” situations.

Play Airlocked! on itch.io (good luck)

Tomb of the Snake King — Our First Game Jam

Posted on by

In early 2021, I was living in Seattle while my family was back in Ireland. Covid had made the world very small, and we were running out of ways to spend time together across nine time zones. So when Zeno Game Jam 3 came around with the theme “It Never Ends,” we figured–why not make a game?

Tomb of the Snake King is a rogue-like snake-like (a genre I’m fairly confident we invented). You venture into a tomb to grab cursed treasure that trails behind you like a growing serpent tail. Dodge mummies, avoid scarabs, don’t touch the walls. The “It Never Ends” theme fit perfectly–the longer you survive, the harder it gets, because you’re literally getting longer.

Ellie, who was twelve at the time, did all the art and music. The pixel art has a charm to it that I genuinely couldn’t have produced–sometimes having a twelve-year-old’s sensibility is exactly what a game about raiding cartoon tombs needs.

We built it in Unity, targeting browser so anyone could play it. WASD to move, and the whole thing runs in a few minutes. It’s the kind of game where you die, say “one more go,” and then it’s 2am.

We came 5th overall out of the jam entries. For a first attempt–a family scattered across the Atlantic, cobbling a game together over video calls–that was a massive boost. It went from “that was a fun experiment” to “so when’s the next jam?”

Play Tomb of the Snake King on itch.io