Museum of Aviation - Imperial War Museum Game Jam
On the 16th and 17th of December 2019, Abertay University played host to a game jam for the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in Duxford.
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I signed up, along with several of my team members from Dreaming Turtles; who worked on Boccia Champions. The task was create a game that would employ STEM teaching policies and curriculum goals whilst also bringing the museum to life for kids.
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The Duxford museum houses many aircraft utilised during the Cold War, such as the SR-71 Blackbird or the A-10 Thunderbolt II. The setting we were to strive for was a 1990s retro vibe with raster graphics from the likes of the SNES or MegaDrive.
Given that the jam only lasted for two days, with roughly 16 hours' worth of development, each game at the jam showcased its potential to be more by highlighting its core ideas.
Our team name was The Flying Aardvarks, inspired by one of the aircraft presented in the brief. Our game became the Museum of Aviation and focused on re-creating the Duxford museum in digital form in order to create a sense of familiarity with children playing the game, and also to make the museum itself more interactive. Users could select a section of the map to explore, denoted by a "You are Here!" sticker, and it would take them to the interior with all of the aircraft.
The top-left plane was the only one intractable within the build, with the idea being that players would be able to unlock more planes and vehicles to examine by finding QR codes around the museum or by solving in-game puzzles or employ knowledge learned about the aircraft.
Once in the hangar with a specific aircraft; the player could tap on the thematically designed arrows to scroll through information about the plane, with speechbubbles and arrows pointing to the corresponding section of the plane. Talking about the wingspan, or the power of the engines, for example. Each aircraft was intended to have its own designed mini game to show a more interactive approach to showing how the vehicle was used during war times.
Authenticity was important for us, and we aspired to make it as relatable as possible. If the project was taken further, we'd love to add in more minigames, more ways to educate users - in the form of puzzles, quizzes and exploration - and designing more areas of the museum.
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Throughout the project, as the producer and team leader, I was responsible for motivation, assigning tasks, ensuring the scope stayed feasible and updating documentation, along with the designer. In absence of an audio student within our team, I also took careof the audio on this project, utilising Audacity and altering pitches, tempos and speeds for sound effects.
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A video of the gameplay can be found on my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/JamesHunterDev
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Working on this project was a lot of fun, and a great means to test the team's skills in a way that let us have more creative freedom; and without the stress of worrying about academic results. If the opportunity arises again, I'd love to try another jam and see what comes of it!
My role & Contributions
As this project was a game jam spanning only two days, everybody on the team lent a hand where needed, regardless of discipline. The team consisted of 6 team members, more than half being core members from Team Dreaming Turtles on Boccia Champions. This allowed us to very quickly get back into action, knowing each other and our talents well. I once more took on the mantle of:
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Producer
Team Leader
Co-Game Designer
Audio Designer
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Given that this project had fewer team members than Boccia Champions; we had to take on additional roles. As such, I was in charge of implementing audio into the game. I also did a production overview to hep keep the team on track and contributed some material and general polish to the game design document too.
The audio development consisted of sound effects and music. While the roles of production and game design, along with knowledge on how to use art and programming languages were provided throughout all four years of university; there was sadly no module or dedication to audio creation and development. Indeed the audio I provided was either free sourced and then manipulated to become my own work or recorded first-hand by me and then adapted.
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It was an interesting challenge and learning curve, and provided me something new and interesting to do throughout the project alongside other tasks what were, by this time, well in my comfort zone.
I made some gibberish style audio to represent the Aardvark who guides you around talking. I also made a slightly deeper variation just to add variety. Other sound effects were recorded using audacity and then adjusted in terms of length, pitch or volume.
Aardvark Chatter
Mini Game Sound Effects
