Global Game Jam is a worldwide event that brings people together to create game from scratch in a deadline of only 48 hours. By the first hour, a theme is revealed and must be shared by all teams as the main base of their games. Everybody must run against the time and give their best.
RITUAL was the theme of 2016.
AMANA is our game.
AMANA is a Tupi-Guarani (native brazilian tribe) word for RAIN.
THE CONCEPT
Although we had so little time, the team decided that was important spending some time preparing ourselves and planning our steps for this Jam. All of us in the team does have jobs, and so when the theme was released, we were not together yet. So, each member created different game concepts by themselves in order to not lose so much time until our rendezvous.
By the time the team united, we brainstormed. All ideas, even the worst ones, were discussed on practical arguments. Can we make it in 48 hours? Is it consistent with the theme? What’s the definition of “ritual”?
There are also some optional challenges for the project, and one of them was to “make a game that features your country, city, or people that jam around you”. So we decided into making something based on brazilian indian people. On those cultures, there are many rituals around the idea of having influence over nature aspects, such as a “rain dance” to bring rain.
The role among these natives with authority over rituals and spiritual/religious concerns, is known as the “Pajé”. This person is responsible for performing or orchestrating rituals, and our game is based on a Pajé trying to bring back water to the tribe where he/she came from.
THE CHARACTER
Our character is based on a Pajé of the Kalankó people, which lives on Alagoas - Brazil. The clothes of straw covering the whole body, feathers in the head and a colored cape are the common vesture.
And here is our character! ♥
BEWARE: FROM NOW ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS OF THE GAME
THE RITUAL
Inside Amana, the pajé needs to climb up to the skies and meet the deity that will help bring back rain. Through the path, there will be puzzles, that will be solved with the help of powers learned from totems found on the way up.
As you go up, the environment aesthetics changes. It starts arid and dry, ending at the clouds above the mountain. Yes, we know that Brazil have many hills and not mountains, but a mountain is a much easier asset to draw and work on such a challenge of short time.
We created platforms of sand, rock, ice and clouds. Each one behaves in a different way so the player must interact with them in different ways. For example, freezing a cloud to climb it or melting ice to go through.
These interactions with the environment happens as you get the powers from the totems, which were based on a fusion of brazilian fauna and art from local native tribes.
The background was made to translate the colors smoothly, but that in each part, the background color was totally different from the previous one. It translates from hot colors of a dry place to dark deep colors of a night sky dotted with stars.
