Into The Clouds

Made with	Unity
Timeline	1 hour + post-release improvements
Playable	Itch.io
Source	stevepdp/into-the-clouds

Retrospective

Made for One Hour Game Jam with the theme “Clouds”.

About The Game

Given that development time is so limited, you really have to go with the first thing that comes to mind. With “clouds” in mind, it was a childhood memory. As a child I would often hang on to climbing frame rails, look into the sky and fear falling into it.

So in the game you’re hanging on to a rail and coins spawn along it. You must move left/right to collect the coins before they disappear. If you don’t, you’ll fall in!

Jamming in One Hour

I’ve been aware of One Hour Game Jam for a few years, but only recently have I felt the confidence to try it.

Despite it actually taking me 1 hour and 15 minutes to design, build and publish, I’m happy with the result. I published the Windows build on Itch in time for the Twitch stream. I then spent a few minutes post-stream tidying up the descriptions and shipping a WebGL build.

Every decision you make during One Hour Game Jam has a measurable impact. Hit play too many times for example…and you’re eating precious time. The editor crashed? Well that mistake cost you a few more minutes. In my case, the worst slowdown was a prefab instancing bug which took 10-15 minutes to figure out and resolve.

The challenge has helped me to gain a sense of both where I’m at and what I’m actually capable of given a short time limit. Another positive outcome is that I feel more ready to take on jams that happen over a weekend like Ludum Dare. Pretty much anything on offer at the game jam databases now feels within reach.