InSight - Asylum Jam 2015

I've done many GameJams in the past but Asylum Jam 2015 is the first one I've ever collaborated on.
Me and Daniel Waite spend 48hours working on this game about invisible aliens.

The rules of the Jam specifically state that the game is supposed to be scary but not include asylums or mental illness as a negative connotation.

My job was programming (everything in the engine), game design, level design
Dan did all the concept art, promotional artwork and asset creation 

I had been playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm at the time and 2 of the characters from that game, Nova and Zeratul both has the ability to turn invisible (almost) which allows them to sneak up on you and pick you off. I figured that It'd work well in a horror game because when you know something is there but you can't see it, it plays on your mind. You can never relax.

Some way into the game the player is given an ultraviolet laser that they can use to press buttons and shine on aliens to make them visible and immobile.

Because of the small size of the beam, the player can only get one thing at a time and therefor has to juggle between pressing buttons to progress and holding back multiple aliens.


I didn't want the player to be able to move whilst using the laser since by using the laser it makes them vulnerable which is scary. Very Resident Evil.

Because the aliens are always immobile when visible, we didn't have to animate them either. This was by design given that we only had 48 hours.

They also have a random chance of moving at 2x speed (just to make the aliens seem less predictable)

The game has good level design in how it introduces the player to different aspects in my opinion. Rather than explain it (because block of text) I urge you to download the game WITH THIS LINK.

Or watch THIS LETS-PLAYER


Collaborating on a game has taught me how important communication is between team members and I found that I was much more motivated when working in a team (I basically didn't stop working).

We used skype constantly to talk about the design and what we were working on at the time and this boosted my productivity a lot.

Also, it's nice having someone to make the art for me since it allows me to focus more solely on the game design and programming.

It taught me a bit about marketing and promoting the game in a positive way.