Game Dev Club: Mascot Mayhem Mid-Game Jam Showcase!

Well hey there, coders and parents! Last week was the first week of our current GAME JAM – which, if you weren’t aware, is a two-week long opportunity for our members to make their VERY OWN, CUSTOM GAMES based around a preselected theme, and share them with all their fellow members. Members of our clubs are then able to play and give XP points to the creations they like the most! It’s fantastic fun, and we enjoyed a whole club dedicated to working on our projects together last week, which means we’ve already seen some amazing games being made (and we’re only halfway through!). And so, to show off how great our coders’ creations are, we’re holding another Mid-Game Jam Showcase, of course!

For some critical context, our theme this time is ‘Mascot Mayhem’ – aka, our members have been challenged to make games based around the theme of mascots – perhaps from the Olympics, football teams, and of course video games! And so, without further ado, let’s get into the games! In no particular order:

1)      Niall – ‘Zonebot Mayhem’

The first game we’re going to be looking at today is Niall’s! Niall made a fantastic game this week that is based around a familiar mascot for all of us here at The Code Zone – aka our mascot, the Zonebot!! Niall’s game is like a glimpse into the everyday life of Zonebot-kind, with tons of Zonebots of different shapes and colours all wandering around on screen in a crazy, chaotic way! As you watch the madness unfold, look closely – the eye-catching rainbow Zonebots are zooming around, but also hidden amongst them are special variants like the cop and robber Zonebots (who are in a constant loop of chasing each other!), the bee Zonebot buzzing away, and many more! All while some epic music plays in the background. Stellar stuff, Niall!

2) Isaac – Olympic Sprint!

Next up we have Isaac’s game! Isaac did a brilliant job creating a game based around the recent Olympics – which is a great idea, as that’s where our inspiration for the theme came from! Isaac’s game has the mascot of the Paris 2024 Olympics to the side, cheering us on – because in his game, WE are taking part in the Olympic sprinting race!! We have to hold down the s key on our keyboard to move us along the track, and try and get to the finish line as soon as possible, to (hopefully) beat the epic high-score Isaac got himself. Give it a go and see if you can! And of course, with some coding wizardry, Isaac made it possible for players to put their webcam as the background of the game, letting you join the audience in real time! Crikey!

3) James – ‘Zoomba Mario Bros’

Now we’re going to have a look at James’ game – titled ‘Zoomba Mario Bros’! That enigmatic titled may seem confusing at first, but as soon as we get started on James’ game, it becomes a lot clearer – James has made an amazing mash-up between our Zonebot Mascot, and of course the classic enemy from the Mario series, the Goomba. This absolutely genius side-scroller game was coded in (without any help at all) by James, and features plenty of platforms and screen transitions we can jump and walk over with the arrow keys! And of course, we can stomp on the Zoomba and squish it down, in classic Mario fashion. It’s a ton of fun, well done James!

4) Finn – Easter Bunny’s Adventure!

The next game from Finn takes a cool twist to the mascot theme, by making our main character the mascot of an entire holiday season! The Easter Bunny is giving us a taste of far-off Spring in Finn’s game, having to bounce up high using the arrow keys to try and grab as many of the eggs floating around as it can. However, it’s not as simple as just collecting yummy chocolate eggs – we have to evade all the monstrous evil eggs that are floating around too, or else we’ll lose points! It’s great that our members are thinking about mascots in all sorts of creative ways – after all, so many things have mascots when you really think about it! Fab job, Finn!

5) Ted – ‘The Olympics’

And now we’re having a look at another brilliant game with an Olympic touch, from Ted! Ted’s take on the Olympic race is also super cool, but this time things are a lot trickier – not only are we up against a robotic opponent, but we also have to press both the left and the right arrow at the same time to run, having to spam the button presses as quickly as we can! Honestly, it’s almost as tricky as actual running (… okay, ill admit that’s a slight exaggeration, but still!). And of course, the runner we’re playing as is none other than the Mascot for the coding language Scratch, the Scratch Cat! We’ve got to make it to the finish line before the robot does – have a go yourself, and see if you can claim that elusive Gold Medal. Big well done for this amazing game, Ted!

And unfortunately, that’s all we have time for today! As usual, it was so hard to pick which games to showcase (there’s just so many great choices), and don’t worry if yours didn’t make it – we’ll do more showcases again soon, and yours could be on that one, who knows! Just keep up the hard work with your coding. Remember that to play any of these games, you can click on the Game Jam tab and click on ‘past jams’ to view all the submissions for this Game Jam or any of the past ones, and even play the games that us mentors have made! Be sure to give your fellow coders an XP point too by clicking on the XP star icon. We hope you enjoy the last week of the Game Jam, and we’ll see you again soon!