Udder Chaos

My Role

Game Designer

Industry

Computer Gaming

The Project Details

Some of the other students and I joined up to enter the 2 week long The DreadXP Extraterrestrial Terror Jam.

It consisted of a 3d artist, a sound tech, and game designer. I used Unreal Engine 5.3 and was tasked with all the game design within the engine.

I pitched the classic idea of an alien abduction game, and we all instantly fell in love with the idea.

Download the game here..

Check out the game jam results here...

The Mechanics

Overall Rules

Cows cannot be harmed by either player or shooting UFO. They can only be abducted.
A new cow will spawn from the barn after a certain amount of time.

Player Details: Appearance of farmer either through socketed assets (hat, boots, etc) or reskinning the existing UE5 mannequin.

Shoots at the UFOs with a shotgun. Land to air fire. No friendly fire.
Has certain # of hits until death. ‘Lives’ can be picked up randomly as the game progresses ( drop chance)

The Game Concept

The players take on the role of a determined farmer who must defend his precious cows from an unexpected UFO invasion. The game unfolds in a rural countryside setting, where the peaceful tranquility is shattered by the sudden appearance of mysterious flying saucers descending upon the farmland.
The goal is to survive the alien attacks and make sure that not all the cows are abducted. If either the player runs out of lives, or all cows are abducted from the level the game is over. Difficulty will increase over time with more enemies spawning as time progresses.

Enemy Details

UFO ships that either come in to abduct the cows or shoot at the player.

00:06

Abduction UFOs

Abduction UFO will spawn and instantly start moving towards the closest cow. Once it has reached the area above the cow, a tractor beam will surround the cow. When the cow is about to be abducted, it will shake back and forth, then will be sucked up into the ship. It is at this point that the ship is unable to be shot down. The ship will pause as its mission is complete, and it will ‘hyper drive’ off the map.

00:08

Shooting UFOs

Shooter UFO will spawn and will move towards and shoot at the player. They will continue to attack until shot down. These have a drop chance of a ‘health’ drop.

My thoughts after this 2 week jam...

I was incredibly nervous to try doing a game jam with not even a full year of experience under my belt, but I feel like I was able to accomplish something cool! One thing I know I would differently is to use the line tracing option for the bullets. The aiming was not as accurate as I had hoped, but I hesitated at trying to implement something I had never tried before. Moving forward, the next time I compete in a game jam I think I will either enter on my own or be sure to partner with others that match my drive and skill level. My team was full of enthusiasm, but I feel like the amount of effort each put into their part was unevenly distributed. Nevertheless, I had a great time and can't wait to do it again!