Role Assigning:

Having split up into our respective groups, my team's first port of call was to separate out the workload and decide which roles people wanted to fill - Between the 6 of us, we had assigned various roles, including lead Programmer, Character designer, Environmental/Level designer, UI/Menu designer, Scriptwriter, Game-tester, and Project Manager. Splitting up the roles like this proved to be a very good idea, as it meant that we could apportion out work individually and all be responsible for different parts of the game; this proved to be more successful than the methods of some of the other teams, whose members were all working on the same things at the same time, which caused a considerable amount of pandemonium. I guess the old expression is true: "Too many chefs in the kitchen spoils the broth..."

Planning:

We sat down together as a group to decide how we should interpret the stimulus for this years Global Game Jam - 'Duality'. We initially had some ideas about making a 2D combat platformer, where the player could switch between a light and dark version of the character, each being able to solve specific puzzles and obstacles; the player would have to use each character appropriately and establish a 'duality' between them to win. However, we decided that this concept would be too generic, and we couldn't help but overhear other teams planning a very similar idea. Therefore, wanting to be more original, we came across a different idea that piqued our interest: An old-fashioned story-driven RPG, reminiscent of 16-Bit Japanese games like 'Earthbound', 'Mother' and 'Chronotrigger'. Rather than having a physical duality, we decided that a metaphorical duality of good versus evil would be more engaging.