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Jazz Odyssey
Elevator Pitch
Jazz Odyssey is a unique fusion of Rhythm and RPG deeply rooted in its detailed combat system, where attacking and dodging to the beat can make or break a battle. The player takes on the role of Cassius, a music mage who must protect the floating islands of Aurora from an onslaught of funky jazz aliens that threaten to drown the known universe in silky smooth solos! The game has a quirky and cartoony art style but, alongside its
light-hearted storytelling masks a detailed and difficult boss rush rhythm game. Jazz Odyessy is a mobile game for the Android market (un-released).
Overview.
Jazz Odyessy was a 1st-year team project consisting of 11 members. During the early stages of development the team had a very clear idea as to the genre they wanted to make. By creating a cohesive vision among the team I was able to help gestate what would eventually become Jazz Odyssey.
Early development
As the level designer my first priority task was creating concepts to run through the team. Once members were happy I would then commence the block-outs. It was important for each environment to represent the element tied to each boss.
Once completed, artists would replace placeholder assets with the models
generated from the concept list.
Late Development
During these stages of development, I took on the task of making the music for Jazz Odyssey and beat mapping each track.
I focused on creating key points and loops within the song and then labelling those points using the Audacity software.
I would then run these labels through a spawn populator
which would identify key labels on the track and spawn the note class
which was labelled to the track, visually on screen.
Reflection
When we started developing Jazz odyssey I was the level designer of the group.
Mixed visions, poor communication and lack of work forced me to take steps, leading to my promotion as team leader and lead designer.
We ended up having a team meeting to identify issues within the group. I then had one on one meetings with those not fully engaged with the course to find out any issues they were facing and how we could overcome them. The work output increased 10-fold.
I feel that dis-engagement wasn't down to the students, but the organisation of the Games Academy. We were taught how to use the Unity engine in our game jams and individual learning. For our assessed module, a minority of teams (including mine) were made to use Unreal, despite a majority of groups being permitted to use Unity. This would have a huge effect on team morale and engagement, as only a handful of members had experience with the engine.
All I can say from this is, we were able to adapt to our situation and meet the demands of our superiors. looking back I realise that our situation was probably a truer experience than any when in the industry, I'm just glad it happened in our first year. As it more than prepared me for the second year.
Warts and all, I'm amazed we were able to make the Games Academy's first-ever rhythm game for Android.
