Today was the first day of the game jam. I spent over half of the day trying to download Unreal Engine on Professor Jacob’s laptop since my 2015 Mac would have never been able to handle that as it can barely handle Unity. While I was waiting for it to download, I began helping another group in the game jam.
During this time, Unreal Engine finished downloading on the laptop. However, it required another software to download. At that point, I felt that it would cause more harm than good if I went back to my previous group; since they would have to explain the entire code base to catch me up. So I remained with the new one since their programmer was sick with covid.
My time at KCG was where I tried a lot of new foods and snacks. I don’t know the names, but they were very good. One was in the shape of a mushroom and had a chocolate top. Another had a koala print on it and was filled with chocolate. I also got to try white rice wrapped in seaweed and Japanese pizza – which I didn’t realize was more uncommon there.
Today was the day the entire trip came down to… Upon arriving at KCG after a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we were met with temporary internet issues at KCG which bottlenecked some from downloading assets or Unreal Engine. During this time, our group specified our game as a trivia game on different elements between Japanese and American cultures. The player would play as explorers and find treasure at the end once answering all the questions.
My role as the artist was to make all of the assets for the game including a cart, rail tracks, and a bamboo forest with treasure at the end. Utilizing premade assets that I had either made previously or downloaded from the internet, I was able to finish my job in that day. However, the whole day was an emotional rollercoaster of mood swings ranging from extreme exhaustion, to mild frustration, and pure joy.
Me in the zone
KCG generously provided drinks all day and provided delicious onigiri for lunch and bento boxes for dinner. KCG were excellent hosts and the translators were very patient and helpful. I also had to borrow Sten’s laptop which was extremely helpful (Thank you Sten). Below is my work from only that one day.
Before going to Kyoto, I knew that I wanted to go to Fushimi Inari before without the crowds. Inspired from a video from the YouTube channel Tokyo Lens, I decided to go at night. I set my alarm for 3:15 in the morning and silently made my way out of the hotel. The walk to Fushimi Inari took about 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of me getting lost wandering around a random neighborhood. The area at night was eerily silent but really pretty. The entire time I saw one maybe two people. With the solitude and silence combined with the iconic torii gates, for a little while, it felt like I was in a whole different world.
I reached the top of Mt. Inari around the same time the sun came up, however, there is no view from the top. The only good view is from approximately halfway. I highly recommend this to anyone willing to get up early as it was for sure worth going. I was worried that it would be a little dark, however, there was often too many lampposts for many of the photos at night to turn out well. The only thing that was a little scary were the wild monkeys roaming around at night.
4 am approx.6 am approx.
I also saw some wildlife.
Other highlights
This is the link to a google photos album of my journey: https://photos.app.goo.gl/skTohPGDtuGQYGSFA
After getting back around 7 and having breakfast at 8, I went back for a nap before going shopping.
Kat and I became fishmongers at Don Quixote
After, we went over to KCG and toured their facilities. They were pretty nice and had some elements that I wish RIT had such as the private rooms and easily accessible power outlets.
lastly, we started the pizza party with the KCG students to kick off the game jam. They were all very fun to be around, except the guy who made me eat three spoonfuls of wasabi…
Day one of the Game Jam was a success! My group consisted of 2 KCG game designers, an RIT animation student, a RIT new media student, and me, a game design major.
We got off to a bit of a rocky start due to some programming road blocks and issues being the only programmer on the team. However, as the event progressed we were able to get in the flow, overcome some challenges and progress with the programming. Katherine also ended up unofficially joining team 1 to assist with programming due to the imbalance of skills on the team.
Our concept dealt with idea of differing cultural depictions of superheroes and common legends. We wanted to incorporate 2 player coop with one player controlling a samurai hero and the other player controlling an american hero. While we were unable to implement local multiplayer, we still incorporated the idea of a dual tag-team esque mechanic by having a single player game in which the player toggled between heroes with siffeeent movesets.
Ultimately, on day 1 we made a lot of progress establishing the idea and feel of the game, communicating with the team about everyone’s role and aspirations for the project, and getting a good foundation with the code structure and programming.
The highlight of the day was definitely continuing to talk to the KCG students and get to know them as we collaborated. My teammates were wonderful and it was super interesting how overtime we were able to figure out an effective way to communicate despite language barriers. Can’t wait to continue tomorrow for day 2!
My Game Jam Team! (From left to right) Back Row: Me, Megan, Reo | Front Row: Fabian, Shoma
Today was the final day of the game jam :(. We bussed over to KCG at around 9:30am and had about 3 hours to finish up our games. The plan for the day was to finish the games, eat breakfast/lunch, and then present our games to two special guests: Akira Thompson and Yuya Shiotani! The first 3 hours were very hectic and disorganized. Fabian was grinding out the animations in record time, which was super impressive, and I was frantically trying to learn how to impliment some of the sound effects into Unreal. The member who was supposed to impliment the sound effects said that he didn’t know how to do it for some of them, and needed help. So I offered to try to do the ones he couldn’t figure out, which took like 2 hours. Unfortunately we didn’t get them in the game because Shoma and Reo where trying to finish the coding and didn’t want us to push anything and possible cause problems.
After frantically finishing our game we ate yummy omorice for brunch. Omorice is basically just an omolet on top of rice with some sauce, which tasted a lot like curry sauce to me. It was scrumdidlyumptious. After eating we all got set up really quickly to present our games to Akira and Yuya. Every game had some really cool and fun ideas to them, regardless of the finish/polish that was reached. Most games, including ours, where not finished, but the special guests still gave great feedback and insight into our little 14hr projects. Overall the jam was super fun and unique, and I think I will remember the experience for a good long while. It was wonderful spending time with the KCG students and meeting all the really nice staff!
After heading back to our hotel I chilled for a bit and then went to get dinner with Maddy, Esther, and Vincent. A lot of the others went to Osaka which sounded cool, but I was too exhausted to do that. We went over to Aeon mall’s food court for dinner and got ramen, which was very yummy and inexpensive as per usual for Japan. On our way back we saw Sten coming back from a dinner party with he KCG staff and talked to him for a bit. Once we headed back inside the Osaka peeps got back and we all hung out again to play Jackbox. Some really funny moments came out of that session and I think it was a great bonding moment for all of us.
Yesterday was the final day of our Game Jam with the KCG students! While we weren’t sure if we were going to get out a remotely finished product (and I think most other teams felt the same way), I’m actually really proud of what we ended up making and all of the other teams made some really awesome products too!! The whole experience was a really interesting look into how game development works and how important communication is, and it’s the first real game that I’ve worked on that wasn’t for a school project made by myself.
The game that my team chose to make was called Café Lingua! The idea was that the main character has just moved to a new country (either Japan or the U.S. based on your native language / country) and opens a cafe, but they can’t understand any of the customers that come in to order. In order to play the game, customers would order in Japanese if you’re an English speaker or vice versa, and you’d have to use trial and error to figure out what phrases match to what products you serve them in order to form bonds with your customers. It was a concept that I came up with that I really want to refine and eventually make my own project based on in the future.
Once the Game Jam was over, we said goodbye to our new friends and prepared for the rest of our day. Unfortunately, the otter cafe had slipped through the cracks and we wouldn’t be able to go, but a large group of us were very excited to head to Osaka to visit the stores there, as this would be our last chance. We got to visit the Pokemon Center there (number 5!), and one of only two Nintendo stores in Japan, the other of which we’ll visit this week in Tokyo.
While I spent a bit more money than I expected to, I’m really happy with all the stuff I got! I got a couple of stuffed animals that I’d never seen in America, some cute sticker packs, and the Splatoon 3 art book which was my personal favorite item. We also got food at this Italian place in the shopping center, which had some really good pizza. Another interesting cultural difference between America and Japan is that waiters won’t automatically come to the table and ask what you want to order— they always wait for you to call them over when you’re ready. It honestly makes more sense, but it makes some weird situations where the waiter is awkwardly side eyeing us from across the restaurant waiting for us to decide what we want.
After we had returned from Osaka, a majority of our group gathered in Pavel and Fabian’s room to take a celebratory “shot” (it was more of a third of a shot) of sake for finishing the Game Jam and having fun on our last night in Kyoto. We played Jackbox games (short assorted game packs made by the Jackbox company), specifically Quiplash and Tee K.O.. Some of the combinations we came up with were absolutely hilarious, and some of them were funny just because they didn’t make any sense. I really love the group of people that I’m with for this trip, and it’s so fun to spend time with everyone outside of the super rigid planning that we’ve had for the last week.
Today we are headed back to Tokyo for the rest of our trip. I think that this half will be a lot less structured, which I’m really excited about because it means we won’t feel like we are zooming from place to place constantly. Hopefully my blog post for today won’t be a whole day late like yesterday’s!
Our first day of the Game Jam started at 9:30 AM, so, naturally, I woke up at 6 AM. After a tired awakening, I showered, got breakfast, and hopped on the bus towards KCG. As soon as we got there, we meet with our groups. My group, Group 5, had some decisions to make concerning our game, such was gameplay and art style, but it was quickly resolved.
The Game Jam started with our team making a Google Drive and my long initialization of Unreal Engine 5. I was worried about this Game Jam because I had never used UE5 before (nor any of its previous versions) and I was hesitant about the use of Google Drive as version control. But, I decided to throw myself in the deep end for the sake of ease for the KCG students on my team who were used to this workflow.
My team: Group 5
I was put in charge of movement and character controls, but I also wanted to work on local multiplayer, which would be my biggest mistake. After getting some quick controller inputs working with the characters, I started working on the local multiplayer aspect. Unreal Engine 5 is pretty new, and there are a lack of videos and articles that could help me figure things out, and it’s documentation isn’t as helpful as, say, Unity’s. So, many of the tutorials and articles I saw were for Unreal Engine 4, which had many different systems that I had to try to adapt to. I was not a fan of the module-based coding and found myself very confused on how to actually interact with the “code.” So, I tired hard-coding it, but the C++ aspect of UE5 is to compliment it’s blueprint system, not replace it.
After several hours of trial and error and no success anywhere near, I decided to put it off and work on other things like collision and hitboxes. Luckily, one of my teammates, Kento, took off where I left, though he struggled just as much as I did. As I was putting together collisions, I, once again, ran into many issues, and time was running out. Eventually, I was defeated by Unreal Engine 5, and, Kento eventually explained to me that we were doing local multiplayer correctly, but the version of UE5 that we were using had bugs in that specific area that blockaded it from good use.
The Game Jam ended and I went back to the hotel, beaten and exhausted. Though, determined to learn UE5 so I could win the next round. Whether that happens in the time before the second day is questionable, but not impossible.
On Friday, we had a free day until 4 PM, as that’s when we would have our first introduction to the KCG students. Brody, Esther, Maddy, and I wanted to go to the Toei Studio Park, where there was a big Evangelion attraction. We asked others if they wanted to come, and Sten ended up straggling along.
We got the park and went straight to the attraction, which was a large statue that you could take pictures with, and even enter and go up towards the top. After a couple photos, we entered and explored the inside, which had cut-outs of many of the characters and a pilot-aptitude test in the form of a multiple-choice personality quiz.
Standing in the hand of the Evangelion attraction
Afterwards, we explored the park a little more, going to get some Evangelion-themed ramen, and going around the many stores. It was getting around 2pm and was a 50 minute journey back, so we left the park and hopped on the train. Once we got to the station, Brody, Esther, and I saw that the AEON Mall was right across the street. The thing about AEON Mall was that there was a very special store in there: a UNIQLO. Sten and Maddy went back to rest as we went into the mall with only the intention to look. How wrong our intentions were. After seeing how cheap the clothes were compared to their US prices, and the different and more diverse designs, we found ourselves on a shopping spree.
Our spree, however, was cut short by time, and it was starting to approach 4 PM. We rushed back and got ready for the bus ride to KCG. Our introduction started with a tour of their newly-built building, which had a minimalistic design to it that I really loved. It was not a very large building, but the facilities were luxurious, especially the teacher’s lounge and garden.
Part of the garden outside of the teacher’s lounge
After our quick tour, we met with the KCG students and shared some Japanese pizza with them. My teammates were really nice, and with the help of one of the translators, Quan, we were able to get along quite well.
We went back to the hotel and some of us got together for a small group hangout, but with the early morning and day-full game jam the next day, it didn’t have its full rager potential.
Today was game jam day! We started by opening up Unreal and downloaded the repo our team made beforehand. The game our team decided to make was a 2.5D puzzle game in which two players must work together to solve puzzles. The characters and environment is 3D while the backgrounds are 2D. The narrative follows 2 space explorers from different galaxies that find themselves stranded on the same deserted planet. They must work together using the various strengths that they acquired from their different cultural backgrounds in order to find their way home.
For the jam I was the designated team manager and sound engineer/composer. Seeing as how I don’t know how to make sound effects nor music, creative commons was my best friend. I also made the Trello for our team to keep track of tasks necessary for completion. The main 11 hrs of the day for me were spent finding sound assets, editing then in Audacity, asking the team members if they liked them, then repeating. The japanese students on our team seemed to really like the background music I found for the game, and I was pretty happy with the sound effects I found for each character. My goal was to differentiate the players in sound, so the technical based character had more futuristic sounding effects compared to the spiritual character. It wasn’t my job to impliment the sounds into Unreal, but I did it anyway try and learn the program a little bit, but I undid my changes before pushing the repo.
During the jam we had to communicate via both google translate and DEEPL, which was a bit challenging but not as much of an issue as I had initially thought. One of our group members spoke pretty good english, which made a huge difference, but one of them was also remote since he hurt his leg. The challenge of working together to complete this game in such a short amount of time was the real highlight of the experience. It was a bit jank and unorganized, but thats part of the fun I think. We had bento boxes for lunch/dinner which were super yummy! After working diligently for 11 straight hours and reaching a point where we thought we could wrap up in the morning, it was time to head home for the night. We bussed the KCG students over to a train station and then headed back to our hotel, where all of us hung out in one of our hotel rooms and played Jackbox games on the switch, which was really fun. After hanging with everybody for a few hours I played some Zelda and went to bed. Overall a really fun and unique experience! Excited to finish up the game tomorrow and present it to our special guests :).
Forgot to add this to my last post, but LOOK AT THIS TINY FRAME IN ONE OF OUR ROOMS.
Perfection.
Anyway, today was the big day! Our team had somewhat communicated before meeting, and we had decided on a concept to expand & build upon today, which I was grateful for. While we didn’t communicate as much as I would have liked, at least we didn’t have to scramble for a concept.
My breakfast at Anteroom Kyoto was pretty light today. We headed out a bit late today but still got to campus on time with a few minutes to spare before the Game Jam officially started.
We had from 9:30am till about 8:00pm to work on our games. The entire time I was wracked with anxiety as to how I could contribute to my team. As a photo visual media major with a million hobbies, I could only call upon my self-taught skills in art & audio to contribute to our team. I was constantly trying to find little things I could do.
Cameron handled the heavy lifting for visuals, Chloe handled the UI icons & menu designs, while our Japanese team members (Takato-san & Kiri-san) handled just about everything else regarding the actual building of the game. I was designated project manager of visuals (and facilitated some conversations between our team members) & sketched out drafts of background music that we could use. A few hours before the end of our session, Chloe and I ended up taking on the task of designing our other player character while Cam was hard at work on the asset art.
It had been a while since I last drew digitally, but today was a day of trying many new things in order to pull my own weight! With our combined braincell, we had designed the character together (wirh input & advice from Cam) and Chloe sketched out a very simple walk animation for us to digitize.
Baby’s first……walk cycle animation……..
We laughed so hard at this that we started crying.
Here’s the second attempt, less than half an hour after the first try! You learn fast when you’re embarrassed of your work.
(Pictured above: our poor teammate being brought back to work by his friends while Chloe cheers him on (?) ft. Cam)
Another sideways photo but here’s our western styled bento that we had for dinner! I asked Kiri-san (pictured above) if he could read the box’ packaging label for me to see if I could understand the text verbally but after he read it, I nodded politely while my head stayed empty.
We wrapped up after many long hours and headed home shortly after 8:30pm. Otsu today, everyone!!
