Mini Jam 69: Running Late

An endless runner where you avoid obstacles and collect sim cards to prevent your conversation with your boss to end.

You can play the game right here: https://breaddysticks.itch.io/running-late

Introduction

Demo

Summary

Running Late is my first submission for a game jam. This game jam was 3 days long and had a theme and limitation: Hell and Cards must be a mechanic. My friend group and I wanted to create a game with a unique twist on the limitation. Instead of using playing cards as other jammers went for, we went for a different type of card.

We decided to create a game where you play as a demon who is on the phone with his boss while running to his work. On his way, he would have to collect sim cards in order to keep the call going. This game acts like an endless runner with randomly spawned obstacles for the player to avoid. If the player runs out of sim gauge, the call ends, and then the game would be over.

Out of the 101 submissions, this game got 8th with a score of 3.977 out of 5.

My Contribution

My role during this game jam was one of the lead programmers. I coded the movement of the player, the collision, and the sim gauge mechanic. I learned a lot about how Unity and C# works, since this was my first time actually programming in Unity.

Process

Sim Gauge System

During the game, your sim gauge bar would slowly go down. This represents the player’s “health” as the game would end once the meter goes all the way down.

When players collide with objects such as rocks and mushrooms, they lose a bit of their bar, similar to a player taking damage. During your run, sim cards would occasionally spawn as well. Collecting those will increase your bar, allowing the player to make more progress.