Ski-J was created by me in 3 days for the 1-BIT JAM #5 (Theme: Winter). The game was inspired by the rhythm concept I know from the PSP games Patapon, and the rhythmic skiing patterns of cross country Skiing.
You play as Ski-J the skier who must save his town by essentially playing delivery boy for the various NPC’s around the world. The map is inspired by Mazama / Winthrop WA, a place I have grown up visiting.
I went cross country skiing for my first time about a month before this game jam so it was fresh in my mind.
Initially I planned just to make a rhythm game, but decided to incorporate skiing, and later the dialogue and quest to save the town after realizing skiing around for no reason was somewhat boring.
I spent most of my time programming as that, at the point of this jam, is my weakest game development skill, so the art was made quickly (some of it was made on stream!)
Making this game was a bit of overwhelming experience because I was attempting to get through every single aspect of game dev by myself in 3 days, but it was overall a fantastic learning experience. Sadly I did not do any beforehand design or concepts – I found no time for that. I instead went with every initial idea I had and ran with it until complete. I’m surprised to say that the game turned out despite my hastiness! I even managed to get some animation in there!
