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JAMZS

Dance to the beat in this unique rhythm game. Place both your hands and feet in the right position and at the right time to catch notes flying towards you.

GAME OVERVIEW

JAMZS is a rhythm game that exists out of 2 components, namely the note arc and the note highway. Notes will fly towards the player on both components. It's their goal to catch the note the moment it reaches the player. Player's catch notes on the note arc by placing their hand in one of their catchers. While on the note highway, the player catches notes by standing on the lane when the note arrives. The game features different with varying difficulty. At the end of each song, the player is rated based on their accuracy and their highest combo.

DESIGN GOALS

The goal of JAMZS was to create a game for the iPlay system. A setup where the player stands in the middle of a floor and wall projection. The player controls the system with motion through devices such as Vive trackers or Kinect. We came up with different concepts for this setup but decided to make a rhythm game as it felt like the most natural choice.

DEVELOPMENT

JAMZS was part of a two and half month long school project where we had to make games for the iPlay system. The team was made of two artists, two developers, and me who was the designer. We originally planned to create two different games, but after a month, it was decided by our teachers to abandon the first project and focus our efforts on the second project. The second project would bloom to become JAMZS. 

During development, I was assigned by our teachers, to take the lead in developing an art style for the project. The main challenge of developing this art style that was bright and vibrant, so it would appear better on a projector. We researched different rhythm games for the art style and prototyped different colors and styles. We ended up with a cell-shaded art style that used complimenting color with glowing objects.

Designing the gameplay brought its challenges. The game had to be very accessible for new players but also had to be something that they could master. So we took different elements from already established rhythm games and combined them. Some features had to be tweaked to either fit in the iPlay system or keeping the game accessible. An example of this was the note highway. We first thought of having the player stomp on the floor to catch a note like in Dance Dance Revolution. But we found that it would be too hard for us to code correctly because of the potential input delay. While on the player side, it's already hard enough to keep track of their hand and feet position.

DEVELOPMENT TEAM

  • Sven Panes Robelo: Project Leader, Game Designer, Animation Scripter, Final UI Designer

  • Robine  Dumoulin: Stamina System, Roundmanager System, Perforce manager

  • Seppe Roelandt: 3D Models, Camera System, End Visuals

  • Cedric Kamermans: Player Script, Dome System, Shader Scripter

  • Liam Hernandez Lucas: Audio, UI Prototype, Menu Prototype

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