Spirit: A Vision of Light and Dark

Many hard-working students participated in this year’s Game Jam competition, all striving to win the award for best game. Forty-eight hours of non-stop work with about 15 different teams creating a video game from the ground up. With no supervision from teachers or anyone with experience within the industry, the students relied on their acquired knowledge through years of school experience to produce a product that people could play. The winner for Best Game went to the team behind “Spirit.” I managed to sit down with Sam Ames, the project director, to learn about the game’s creation and what she learned from her experience.

The theme behind the game relates to duality, such as good vs evil and light and dark, with the playable character in the game switching from a deer character to a standing werewolf-like creature. Sam stated that the team wanted to do a dark fantasy story with inspiration from Norse mythology. The game is a puzzle-platformer in which both characters have different mechanics that must be used in certain areas in order to progress.

With a project as ambitious as “Spirit,” some of the difficulties early on in the development were trying to manage which ideas they could accomplish within the short time window. As soon as the clock started, they only had one hour to discuss the ideas for the project, and once that time was up, they had to get started on creating the game. The production followed the typical game development pipeline but in a much more condensed state.

As production crept closer to the 48-hour mark, certain aspects of the game needed to be removed. A grand cinematic was removed because it took too long to add the finishing touches. In addition, some of the characters couldn’t be polished the way the developers intended.

It was a grueling weekend for the team, and Sam had estimated she might have slept a collected 3-5 during the competition. Such focus on beating the clock made the team forget about some of their needs, such as food, but thankfully one of the team members brought them all pizza and doughnuts from their work.

Once the timer was up, the team could no longer work on the project and had to render everything out on five separate computers. The judges reviewed all the projects and started announcing the competition winners. Sam had believed the project didn’t have a chance after losing the “Best Art” category but was stunned to discover the project won the highest award for Best Game and they would be competing in the state competition. Sam said she had felt a sense of joy after winning, considering it was the first time she had been recognized for any of her 3d work, which after personally seeing her work, I found that to be a surprise.

At the time of the interview, the team had just won and was about to start making improvements to the game for the state competition. The team had 30 days until they needed to present their work against the three other colleges competing, giving them much more room to explore some of their ambitions early on. Their goal was to have one polished level and some new characters, voice-over narration, new animations, and an intro sequence. In addition, the team wanted to focus on the narrative while also improving the accessibility of the game.

The state competition was very stiff, particularly with one of the teams being a solo developer. While Spirit successfully made the improvements it sought, it wasn’t enough to bring home the state title. I had spoken to Sam shortly after the competition to get her thoughts, and while she was disappointed at the outcome, I could tell that she still held the pride the team earned by making it that far in the first place.

“Spirit” was an ambitious title with many talented students putting in hard hours. The theme of duality in the game makes it stand out against the others, making it a unique project created by many hard-working students. The hours that they put in were grueling but worth it since they were able to win. While I can’t say for sure what will happen next for the team after the state competition, a part of me believes this won’t be the last time we hear about “Spirit” and its team members.

Link to their GameJam website: https://globalgamejam.org/2022/games/spirit-9