Savannah Survival

I made Savannah Survival with my friends Zack and Ben in my first ever game jam, which only lasted 3 days. The theme was “savannah” with a constraint that mouse input was the only method of control allowed. I led the design of the project, ideating and making concept art, and writing some documentation to try to guide us. We settled on the idea of an alien crash landing in the middle of a savannah on Earth and trying to survive against our planet’s wildlife. I wanted to subvert the trope of human astronauts surviving on hostile alien planets among ridiculously dangerous predators, and I liked the idea that an alien from a world without predators would view a lion or a tiger the same way we view a xenomorph.

We had 2 separate ideas for gameplay: fending off predators that slowly sneak up on you in your camp, and fleeing from the same predators in an infinite runner. Ultimately we decided to implement both mechanics, with the player running away during the day and defending themself at night. This approach split our efforts, and it would have been wiser to only focus on one of the mechanics given the short timeline and our lack of experience.

That inexperience also led us to struggle with prioritizing the most important parts of the project. I handled the level design, enemy AI, and some of the player controls for the night section, Ben made the night section shooting mechanic and the music for both sections, and Zack worked on the level design and mechanics for the day running section. We spent a considerable amount of time working on features like procedural terrain generation for both sections. While these were nice additions, they should have been more like stretch goals, and they meant we failed to consider aspects like UI and a level system until it was too late.

I ended up submitting the project to the jam less than a minute before the deadline in a very incomplete state. Although they didn’t end up coming together like we planned, I’m proud of the individual pieces of the project. It was also a very valuable learning experience; since then I’ve put a lot more time and consideration into UI design and the more subtle aspects of game development. I still want to revisit Savannah Survival some day so I can fully realize the initial concept, but it’s low on my priority list.