Who are you?

Ben Reynhart, Creative Director for Mutant Labs

What is your favourite game of all time and why?

My favourite game is Portal, because it’s challenging and has tonnes of character. I never really played puzzle games before that, so it introduced me to the genre. I’m a big fan of anything Valve make generally

Do you regularly attend Game Jams? Or was GameHack your first one?

Yep I try to! Our company (Mutant Labs) has a great ethos for hacking together projects, especially games. I would say that our entire company partakes in around 3-5 game jams a year, in fact we are doing one this weekend!

How did you find it?

I loved it – probably the best Game jam we’ve been to. The organisation was top notch, catering, location, etc. Everything was ideal.

What was your idea?

Having 7 members  in the Mutant Labs gang, we decided to split up into 3 different teams and work on 3 games:

1. Burger Rush - This is a cross platform Android and iOS multiplayer game of Jet pack tag. Airborne burger junkies battle it out for precious time holding the meaty treat, whilst building up their burger bar.
2. ChaseBook - What if all your Facebook friends turned on you? What if you wanted to avoid any social interaction? It’s up to your finger to save your lonesome existence in this iPad game built in iOS Flixel by avoiding all your friends and staying out of the way.
3. Treated Accordingly - This game was inspired by the dedicated security team at Pinewood studios who serve and protect the star-studded list of actors and actresses found on set – mess with them and you will be treated accordingly! In a multiplayer top-down game, one player sneaks around the map taking photos of celebrities, while another plays a hardened security guard with a hatred for paparazzi.

How did it work out?

1. Burger Rush - “Pretty good actually, Chris and I have worked this way a few times before and have the process down quite well. We initially struggled a bit at the start comming up with ideas as we are used to working with a theme, but after a few cups of tea and some snacks, we settled on the idea for Buger Rush.” – Rich
2. Chasebook - “We were pretty happy with the outcome of Chasebook. We managed to get the core gameplay of making your friends chase you down, and got big boss Zuckerburg in to round things off at the end. All in all we were keen to make something challenging and a little bit silly, which i think we just about managed to pull off.” – Alex
3. Treated Accordingly - “I think we were overly ambitions with our idea (at least technically), however we got the majority of work done, and had a playable demo by the end. We where also lucky enough to have a talented animator/comedian on our team, who made a killer game trailer that added loads to the project.” – Ben

Did you continue working on your idea after GameHack?

We saw real potential in the Chasebook game mechanic, so we took the idea and developed it into a commercial game: Half-Inch Heist – an action-packed diamond heisting game on a tiny scale. The game will be released on the iPhone App store in Autumn 2012 – see www.halfinchheist.com for details.

Any tips to share about making a game in 24hrs?

• Don’t be too ambitious! Start with a simple idea with a neat hook and expand from there.
• Don’t waste time with using source control / setting up tools  - just dive in.
• Teams of 2 works best, artist and coder. Having 2 coders is sometimes problematic. Bigger groups need more organisation and are less efficient.

Anything else you would like to share?

It’s not a bad idea to have in mind who you might like to work with before going to the jam. At the same time it’s a great chance to meet new people and learn new skills. Also don’t try and learn a new programming language! Use tools you are familiar with to get most bang-for-buck!