osmanzekiFull stack developerCreative technologist
All projects

2014

Jam

An online playful music creation and sharing video game and platform

Video gameMusicInteractive platform
Jam project cover

The game

Jam is an HTML5 video game based on a popular, music-oriented, TV show of the same name on Ontario, Canada’s TFO channel. The game is a mix between classic arcade mechanics with high scores, leaderboards, combos, bonuses, multipliers and a simple music creation and sharing system that allows players to combine multiple instrument sounds and loops with variations of intensity to create a song that can be shared to and replayed by friends and the public. The game features 10 playable levels and music genres, 5 unique instruments by genre and 3 intensity variation for each of those.

I was lead programmer on the project, in charge of selecting the right technology to build it with (in this case PhaserJS), programming all that game’s mechanics, architecture and website related features (scoreboards, contest and account registration, social sharing, song history, profile, etc). In short, I was in charge of creating an asset pipeline, integrating the said assets into the game as efficiently as possible and programming all the systems including gameplay, sound, level editing and serialization, procedural animations & visuals effects, networking, UI, etc.

All of these come to life with Björn Feldmann’s vibrant artwork and animation and Jean-Olivier Bégin’s quirky and fun takes on music genres tropes.

The reception

The game launched in late 2014 with a contest that would have the best players on the leaderboards earn a chance to win a guitar and an amplifier. The game was well received and a lucky (and skilled!) player was drawn out of the top 10 players on the leaderboards at the time. In 2015, the project was nominated for the “Convergence - Best Youth Product” category at the Numix awards and sadly did not win but as a result, two more levels requested by TFO were added for the players to enjoy in the summer of 2015.

In late 2015, I gave a technical talk about the making of this game at two local programming and independent game events respectively in Montreal, at the monthly Javascript Montreal and Mount Royal Game Society meetups.

Project media

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Credits

Game design
Nicolas Boillot, Lise Antunes Simoes, Loïc Suty
Project management
Tiffany Assous, Isabelle Repelin
Art direction
Bjorn Feldmann
Music composition
Jean Olivier Bégin
Programming
Osman Zeki