Lucas Thielmann

MASK 8 is a short game I collaborated on for Global Game Jam 2026. I took on project management and much of the programming with a team of 4. We completed the game within the 48-hour timeframe with plenty of time to spare.

The game is a short bullet hell with a single boss that has 3 phases. Each phase, the boss sheds the skin of its head to reveal an even more terrifying visage underneath. We intentionally kept our scope low, since we had little time, and most of the team hadn't worked on a game jam before. This enabled us to meet our goal of a fully complete game within the time provided, complete with art, animations, UI, and sfx/music.

Development

The programming for this project wasn't too complex by itself (by design). Because not everyone on our team was experienced with Unity, I focused on making sure that things operated smoothly and intuitively for my teammates. A few key elements contributed to this:

• Standard Public Functions - I made sure that the GameManager script had many exposed public functions for standard tasks, to ease the burden on the other programmer, and to provide accessible functions for our UI designer to access in-editor via Unity Events. I also made sure that the GameManager was a singleton with references to the player and boss, so we could access them without having to make costly GetComponent calls.
• Avoiding Git Conflicts - I managed separate branches for ongoing tasks and merged them as needed. I also ensured that everyone was working in different scenes or prefabs within Unity to minimize problems.
• Task Board - I organized a kanban board using Trello so everyone could see what tasks remained and how to prioritize them.

What I Learned

1. I do enjoy longer Jams more, since there's less constant pressure to always be working and there's time to take breathers.
2. I'm not so bad at being a project manager as I think.
3. I think it would've been worth it to use the extra time to add some more gameplay features, like a dash or different firing modes.