Don't Fall! is a competitive 2.5D platformer game reminiscent of the tower jump genre. Boiling hot lava rises up from below, and the only way for the players to escape is going upwards and mastering the platform challenges, while at the same time trying to push their contestants into the flames. To do so, they can collect items and use different special abilities unique to each character, like weapons and magic, but also supporting skills like double jumps to save them from a deadly fall. The last surviving player wins the match.

The challenge of this jam was to implement a working local multiplayer mechanic ("couch multiplayer") for two or more players using Epic's Unreal Engine. First conceptual ideas included an endless runner for two players and a space shooter boss rush game, before we decided to go for a competitive platform gameplay with a fun and slightly chaotic Smash Bros vibe. Local multiplayer is possible with up to four players, although a gamepad is needed for each player. The game features several multiplayer levels and two singleplayer challenges.

Angela's Quest is a 2.5D puzzle platformer in which the player controls the protagonist Angela and her companion, a fantasy creature sidekick named Tromo, through ruins full of magic, puzzles and evil creatures. A fighting mechanic is absent; the player has to solve the puzzles solely by either using elemental forces like ice, fire and electricity on the environment, or by commanding Tromo to carry out tasks which Angela herself is not capable of doing. The goal in every screen is to open the gate to the next room to proceed and, in the end, confront the ruler of the land, a big, magical lion.

The main challenge we wanted to tackle in this jam was to create a fully functional AI companion, who is able to follow the player as well as carry out tasks given to him. These tasks include pulling levers, defeating or distracting enemies and standing on pressure plates to keep doors open. The game was developed during two consecutive game jams (the amount of content being too much for one weekend jam alone) using the Unreal Engine, with me being responsible for the project coordination, game rules and puzzle design, as well as music and sound effects. Characters and scenario are taken from the world of our Weltenwanderer-Saga, which technically makes the game a "prequel".

Being my very first game jam project, Specuspace is a 2D space shooter in which the player has to face enemy waves of rising difficulty and a final boss waiting after the tenth wave. The gameplay is similar to sidescrolling shooters like R-Type and Gradius, but the game does not feature a special weapon or item system. Instead, the standard weapon's angle is tilted slightly into the direction the player is flying. The player starts with three lives, but there are only two checkpoints in the game, a fact that makes the game an exceptionally hard challenge.

Specuspace was developed in Java. As it was the first jam for all of us, our main goal was to come up with something playable at the end of the jam time. Besides being responsible for the game rules, I also supported our lead programmer by providing additional Java code and enemy patterns.