Save The Lab
Local 2 player PVP action puzzler made for "Global Game Jam 2025" in Karlsruhe
Documentation is work in progress
48 Hours (24.01.25 - 26.01.25)
Programming, Game Design
Unreal Engine with Blueprints
6
Description: Save The Lab is a PVP Action Puzzler in which you need quick thinking and fast reflexes to win.
Story: You are a student in a lab and your professor had an accident. His potions are about to explode and you need to add ingredients quickly to stabilize them. Whoever manages to add 10 ingredients first while keeping the potions stable wins.
Gameplay/Features: In Save The Lab you compete against your opponent locally on the same keyboard. Each player needs to take ingredients from the middle of the screen by inputting the arrows shown on screen. The first player to collect 10 ingredients first wins. However, there are two scales that get increased or decreased depending on the shape and color of the taken ingredient. You need to analyze the ingredients instead of taking them blindly and balance the scales or otherwise your potion explodes and you lose.
Workflow: As our other developer had problems with his car and I basically did all of the gameplay programming myself. However, I managed to implement solid gameplay system. I created a input system, that would save the players input and compare them to the inputs shown on screen. Also, I created In the end we added a title screen with menu, a tutorial screen with a video produced by our teammates, added art, music and soundeffects and cleaned everything up.
Key takeaways: Doing so much alone was a bit though as my knowledge in Unreal Engine was still kind of limited and Unreal Engine is not optimal for 2D games. However I still managed to implement the systems in a way that they work well together. I especially like the way the game conveys information not through simple numbers or letters but graphics and colors. As the result of the Game Jam and my first bigger Unreal Engine project I am proud of the way it turned out.
What I would do better next time: Next time we should choose a better engine for the project as Unity would have probably been easier.