Global Game Jam — “Voyage dans la Loons!”

Three days, one game jam, and a goofy idea: help three loons survive the perilous journey into outer space. I brought the concept to life with UX and gameplay design, player-focused interactions, and a custom soundtrack

Roles

Lead UX Designer, Lead Gameplay & Interaction Designer, Co-Creator, Music Composer

Timeline

48 hours

Tools

Adobe Photoshop, Figma, Ableton Live

The Challenge

The 2024 Global Game Jam theme was “Make Me Laugh”


Game jams leave no room for waste—48 hours to take a silly idea and make it real. Our goal: transform the ‘Make Me Laugh’ prompt into a space adventure where three loons power a ship to the moon. The challenge was building controls, player feedback, and outcomes that were both absurd and surprisingly satisfying

My Role & Approach

Humor through Gameplay

We chose an absurd concept quickly and ran with it, basing it in our Minnesota roots: loons flying to the moon

I focused on blending humor into both the writing and mechanics, designing controls that made the joke playable

  • UX Focus: keep controls simple and responsive so humor came from the experience, not confusion

  • Made failure states silly rather than frustrating

Design & Iteration Under Pressure

Sketched quick wireframes to map player inputs and feedback loops.

  • Built & tuned movement in Unity to feel goofy but satisfying

  • Collaborated across art and code to keep the tone consistent (UI, animations, sound cues)

Beyond UX: Music & Feedback

I composed the soundtrack in Ableton Live, leaning into spacey, upbeat tones with comedically-timed loon calls. Audio feedback became just as important as visual cues, making mistakes feel funny rather than frustrating.

Process Detail

The team approved my idea to riff on the 1902 movie, Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune)

  • It’s in the public domain

  • An optional modifier to the “Make me laugh” prompt was to reference the moon as well

Early color explorations

Initial title screen sketch:

Playable characters — Pixel art done in Photoshop

Wireframes — branching dialogue trees

First prototype of areal flight gameplay

The Final Game

Voyage Dans La Loons! released on Itch.io at the end of the jam

  • Playable in-browser

  • Downloadable on Windows and Linux

Featured in the Star Tribune

Key Features:

  • Controls anyone can master quickly

  • Clear UI and feedback loops for clear, funny interactions

  • Cohesive art, music, and design that captured the jam’s theme

  • Potential to scale features in the future (add more loons with goofier movement options)

What I Learned

  1. Constraints drive creativity! The 48-hour timeline forced clarity and prioritization

  2. Leading with an emotion-first design—humor—helped the gameplay click quickly with players.

  3. Looking back, I’d rename the game in English to make the joke more accessible (something like Loon-ar Voyage still keeps the riff)

  4. Pixel-art loons in lab coats don’t look like scientists… they look like crows on casual Friday. Great call to skip the coats