Join us for an interview with Marcela Roberts, one of the IGDA x Core Summer Jam winners who placed 3rd with Island Race Festival, a racing game with a tropical party theme. This completely virtual game jam used Core to empower the participants to make amazing games over the span of just three weeks.

Core is the new free game creation platform that lets you build, publish, and play games. Core makes prototyping and iteration fast, so it’s a great platform for Game Jams, especially if you want to quickly set up a 3D multiplayer experience. You can get started making games right away using thousands of free, high quality music, sound, and art assets, with no coding required.

“Hi, my name is Marcela Roberts, and I’m a mom of 4 young kids. Finding time to develop my art and game development skills has been tough, but this is where Core has stepped in. I started using Core in May for a different game jam. It was rough finding the time (my game development hours have become somewhere between 10pm to 3am, varying each night depending on when the kiddos wake up the next day), but Core‘s development options allowed me to quickly prototype and put something playable together. My experience with that jam was so fulfilling that I immediately jumped onto the next one, the IGDA x Core Summer Jam.”

“Island Race Festival started off as a two person team, with myself working on environment art and sounds, and my partner working on the scripting side of things. We discussed a few ideas before we landed on a racing game that featured an island with dancers. The heightmap used for the island is actually a map of the Dominican Republic, the country my father is from.”

“As I progressed (and the deadline came nearer), it was clear that my partner had to drop out of the jam, so all I had was art and sound, but zero functionality. Having minimal scripting experience, I knew I had to get to work. I was able to adapt various functions already available in Core‘s great Community Content, while some other functionality had to be cobbled together from scratch. In the end, I was able to submit a chill experience that embodies that island vibe in a way that I’m really proud of. I’m a fan of the Rush and Super Off Road arcade games, so as I move forward with my jam game, I hope to add elements of both with some timed events.”

If you would like to follow Marcela on her game development journey, you can find her on Twitter (@awkwardgamedev) and itch.io (https://awkwardgames.itch.io/).