Collaboration and Teamwork: Blobland Wars Final
- Aiden Cunningham
- Nov 15, 2018
- 3 min read
As a child, I always wanted to be a game designer, and I designed many small games during my childhood using both the free and Pro versions of Game Maker 7. This began for me at age 11. I also published many of these games online at a website called Yoyogames, designed specifically for developers using Game Maker to create games. Many of the games that had been uploaded were very basic in terms of programming and design, however the creative ideas being expressed by the designers were very good and often times innovative.
Out of many of the games I published on this site, some of the most popular and well-received were the games I created as a part of the Blobland Wars series. The series was inspired by a combination of different factors, including a character called "Bloo" from an animated Cartoon Network TV series called Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends (Craig McCracken, Lauren Faust, Mike Moon, 2004), and a Playstation 2 game called Obliterate (Phoenix Games, 2006). These two things served as the creative inspiration for to create these games at 12 years of age, and I would later work with Joe to finish my fourth and final game in the series, Blobland Wars: Final.
I started developing Blobland Wars: Final, in December of 2009, after having successfully completed and uploaded three finished games in the series, Blobland Wars, Blobland Wars 2: The Territory Wars, and Blobland Wars 3, all containing many different and unique gameplay concepts and ideas. As such for the final game in the series I planned to include all the concepts from the previous games, mixed in together. I developed the game and managed to complete 8 finished and fully functional levels, working on the game after school each day. Eventually a combination of stress around schoolwork, and just generally feeling a lack of inspiration, meant that I ended up abandoning the game and leaving it unfinished. Eventually I uploaded it to the Yoyogames website as apart of a zip. file containing several of my incomplete and unfinished games projects.
To my surprise, a user by the name of Joe Anderson, a fellow creator of FPS games on the site, who often played my games, contacted me personally soon after, offering to complete and finish Blobland Wars: Final for me. We had collaborated previously on an FPS game, and I had always admired his game ideas and design style throughout my years on the site. I agreed to let him finish the game for me, and sent him the project files immediately. He did finally complete and upload the finished version of the game in 2012 to the Yoyogames website, and when he did it received many favourable responses from other users, better than any of the other games in the series.
This experience taught me a valuable lesson about collaboration, teamwork, and allowing others to help you go the extra mile to polish and complete something. Unfortunately, the Yoyogames website underwent major changes between 2015 and 2016, and so the old version of the website, along with all the games and their creators, has been deleted. Luckily, Blobland Wars: Final has been uploaded to the more recent indie game website Gamejolt, where it is available for download. The game can be downloaded and played here: https://gamejolt.com/games/blobland-wars-final/181867
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REFERENCES
Cunningham, A.C. & Anderson, J.A. (2012). Blobland Wars: Final. Retrieved on 15th November 2018 from https://gamejolt.com/games/blobland-wars-final/181867
McCracken, C.M., Faust, L.F., Moon, M.M. (2004). Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends. United States. Warner Bros. Television Distribution.
Phoenix Games. (2006). Obliterate. Paris, France. Atari SA.
MAGICOLO Y8 Games. (2012). Blobland Wars Final - Freeware FPS Gameplay Magicolo 2012. Retrieved on 15th November 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMdoOd5GF4
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