Jumanji: Epic Run! is an endless runner game released on Android and iOS by Crazy Labs and developed by Playside Studios. The game was created as part of a contract for Sony Pictures to promote the film Jumanji: The Next Level. The game was developed in the Unity game engine using C#.
My role in its development was that of the primary programmer on the project handling everything from gameplay programming, systems creation, optimisation, tools maintenance and creation, art hookups, asset creation and setup, and UI functionality.
Gameplay
Part of Jumanji’s hook as a runner is the ‘4 directional’ gameplay. This manifests in the form of the 4 game modes: classic runner gameplay, running from a stampede of animals, climbing steep inclines and falling down cliffs and waterfalls. It was my job to take the concepts of the prototypes for these game modes created by the technical designer and integrate them into the larger game, creating transitions between runner gameplay and the extra modes in addition to their individual gameplay.
Character Abilities
Jumanji being headed by flagship characters meant that it required unique gameplay for each of the playable avatars in the game. The goal of this was to make them all feel individual and different. However, no one could be stronger or better than the other so players could choose their favorite. This lead to the development of the characters perks which, implementing was part of my responsibility. Each one that I worked on required new gameplay to be created and added to the game to make it feel special and different.
Implementation
Throughout the development of the game it was also my job to work closely with the game designers to bring their vision for the game to life. This involved a significant amount of iteration and refactoring of areas of gameplay to make sure the game felt right in every aspect of its design. It was also my role to polish all aspects of the game and implement any desired game-feel to increase the play-ability and juiciness of the game, continuing to work in tandem with the designers to achieve this.
Tools
It was also my responsibility to create any tools required by designers and artists, and maintain, update and expand on existing ones that were being used to develop the game. These tools were in the form of custom editor expansions of Unity to enable the other disciplines working on the game to handle some of the more complex tasks of development without programmer input.
Updates
After release I remained on the Jumanji team for its first couple updates. The first update was a performance pass aimed at reducing load times across the project to meet certain targets. The second one was a content update which added a challenge mode to the game that modified the gameplay to have authored levels.
Additionally, throughout the project I liaised with the client regarding technical matters of the project and briefed their engineers on the workings and implementation of aspects of the game. This was to enable them to further expand on the game later without our direct involvement.
The game can be downloaded here for android and here for iOS
Rupert Schofield 