Just Go Up
"Just Go Up" is a 2D platformer made for the Oct Jamfest 2025 at GMU over the course of 3 days. The theme for the game jam was Mixed Signals. "Just go Up" deliberately confuses the player's inputs — every time they gain a new ability, the controls are remapped. This creates a sense of disorientation and miscommunication between player and game, embodying the idea of receiving mixed signals while trying to stay in control.
- Team Size
- 8
- Duration
- 3 Days
- Engine
- Unity
- Roles
- Game Design, Level Design
Role
Designer
I co-designed this game with my colleague Alex Dugan, contributing to level layouts, key-switching mechanics, and player abilities. During our hectic 3-day development I supported multiple areas of production — animation assistance, background parallax setup, and overall art implementation. My primary focus was building the levels themselves and designing the various hazards Aurora encounters along her journey.
Challenges
Working with a slightly larger team of eight people under an expanded project scope proved to be one of my most demanding—yet rewarding—challenges in my game development experience so far. Designing levels while accounting for every available ability, as well as the game's difficulty progression, often led to last-minute adjustments that ultimately benefited the game's overall health. This project reinforced the importance of communicating clearly with teammates and understanding what is truly feasible within a limited production timeline. Early prototypes even gave Aurora all of her abilities right from the start, and at one point we explored a feature that randomized the player's basic WASD movement keys.