Reeco — Jeffrey Prime

Game Jam Theme: Rescue

An avalanche has just rocked the sleepy resort town of Renou, which is located on the mountain that shares the same name. Several skiers and outdoor adventurers have gone missing and are presumed lost in the avalanche. As Reeco, it is your job to search the mountain for survivors. Your snout will point you in the direction to the nearest clue to find a lost skier. You’ll need to be quick. With the temperature dropping and the threat of more avalanches, time is not on your side.

Reeco was developed during a 48-hour game jam, or two and a half school days. The team consisted of one programmer, three artists and three designers who had been in school for about six months. All development was done remotely using Microsoft teams, Unity, and Perforce.

Game Page

What I learned

Information matters

Armed with my experience making Out of Thyme, I knew it was important that the design team complete as much documentation as possible for this project. That documentation would help convey our thoughts in a clear and concise manner to other members of the team. This limited the number of times Ryan (programmer) needed clarification on a mechanic and allowed him to work as efficiently as possible.

Relationships matter

Developing Reeco afforded me the opportunity to again work with individuals that I made Out of Thyme with. Building and maintaining those relationships helped ensure a smoother development experience. This included better communication between individuals and the ability to solve problems quickly when they came up.

Players matter

The first-time player experience (FTPE) is important. For Reeco, we were too focused on getting content into the game and not on how that content would be presented to the player. That lead to feedback that players were not sure what the goal was and how to achieve it. Better UI, a control menu, and some mechanic tuning would go a long way to improve this player experience.