Glube Jam 2023

(Dallas) Society of Play held its very own Glube-themed Game Jam! Glube is their adorable mascot that the community has grown to adore.

The team I worked with created an arcade game where anyone can play as Glube and enjoy jamming!

Check out my Designs page to see other work I have done for Society of Play!

Overview

Players: Multiplayer

Genre: Arcade (for cabinet use)

Role: UI Designer

Team: 6

Dev time: 2 weeks

Tools used: Figma, Photoshop, Unity, Git

Skills exercised: Adding UI into Unity, Creating graphics for an arcade cab, anticipating asset needs, and time management

Vision

The goal of the project was already established when I joined:

An arcade game where Glube finds items in the wild to make jams (any items would do). These jams are then sold at the weekly Show-and-pay.

My role was to create UI assets for the buttons, start screen, and HUD. Additionally, I defined the jam-making process >>>

(based on real jam recipes I saw on YouTube 😎).

Process

As always, I followed a process when designing.

This process is updated to fit the project and to promote a more effective workflow.

Gather

Define goals

Set timeline

Team meetings

ID key ideas

Ideate

Game research

Collect references

Ideate tone/look

Create

User flow

Sketch assets

Mockup & Iterate

Prototype

Finalize UI

Present mockups

Conclude

Push assets into Unity

Present at the Show & Play

Gather

Define Goals, Set Timeline, & Identify Key Ideas

The goal of this jam, for me, was to practice putting assets into Unity and creating neat UI elements. Collaborating with two programmers who already had a (fairly) achievable idea in mind was a bonus.

The key ideas:

Objective is to make and sell Jam
Game will be made for SOP the arcade cabinet
The title will be Glube of the Wild Berry Jam vs. EX Cook Off Championship Edition and should reflect such extravagance.

Although not perfectly legible, I wanted to still show that I was organized and prepared :)

Ideate

Game research, Collect references, Ideate tone & look

Initial tasks:

Create interaction prompts to help guide the players
Create a title screen with 'flat', 'y2k', and 'Smashbros' vibes
- Inevitably helped brand UI and game

I created this FigJam to collect references for each of the key terms provided
With some help from Google Images, I had a clearer idea of what fonts, colors, and shapes to use

Calculating...

... Ta da! (Click to view game)

Create

User flow, Sketch assets, Mockup & Iterate

Although I did not require a user flow directly, it still helped me picture the structure of the game before it was real.

Also, since it was for me more than a deliverable, I left it a bit messy and focused on the Making Jam aspect of the game.

For the Button prompts, UI elements, and Ready Screen, I started with sketching:

Button promts & Buttons

HP Bar

Ready Screen

Inventory

Prototype

Finalize UI & Present mockups

The two weeks went by quickly so finalizing UI mainly relied on three things: Does it fit the 'y2k', 'flat', 'Smashbros-esque' theme initially decided? Is it intuitive enough for players? and Does it match the standard set by the title screen?

Ultimately, having a yes from each of these was necessary to move on to focusing on gameplay.

(Progress)

Fonts

The fonts used during y2k are bubbly and extravagant. I wanted to utilize that concept as much as possible when looking for a title font which is why I went with Zorque.

The secondary font, however, could be way more 'video gamey' for the arcade cab: Visitor TT1

Colors

Each player could be a different color of Glube. Although Glube is typically either green or purple, the arcade game allowed red, blue, yellow, and green. I utilized purple as an available color for the interface (similar to the Start Screen). Also, since Glube's form would remain the same and his color was all that changed, I filled the ready screen banners accordingly.

E0341C

FFEB33

3F75FF

70B44A

Conclude

Push assets into Unity & Present at SOP's Show & Play

Given this was my first game jam, I am proud that I showed up. However, there are many things I would do differently now having seen the engine side of things:

Now that I know how to add elements in-engine using Git a lot easier, I would test how things look on my own branch a lot more.

Would also make some changes to the visuals in the interface, but that would always be true if given more time.

Finally, now more comfortable using Git, I am destined to spend more time implementing UI on my next project!

Check out the game on itch.io at https://flowt.itch.io/glube-of-the-wild!