Cheshire Rampage
Category
Game Jam
Period
2025 (48-hour jam)
A psychedelic 2D rhythm action game where every beat drives your attacks, dodges and moves.
Roles
Tools
01. Context
Cheshire Rampage is a top-down rhythm action game inspired by Alice in Wonderland, developed in 48 hours by a team of 6 (Society Games Team) for GameJam Plus 2025/26.
We picked the theme “The Next Version Is Yours”, which asks for reimaginations of public domain stories and characters, and made the Cheshire Cat our protagonist. The game was inspired by The Binding of Isaac and Crypt of the NecroDancer: attacks, dodges and movement are synced to the music.
02. My Role
I worked as Programmer and Game Designer, handling a large part of the Unity project setup, and shared design and programming tasks with Victor and Gabriel. Without prior planning, tasks were split as ideas came up during the jam.
03. Challenges & Learnings
Changing scope: we planned to use a grid-based structure, but dropped it during development.
Rhythm as the core mechanic: we spent a lot of time tuning the rhythm mechanic and making players understand how the game should be played.
The biggest lesson: rhythm was a poor choice as the main mechanic for a 48-hour jam. It needs precise tuning and clear onboarding, which is hard to do on that timeline. Next time, I’d pick a simpler core and plan the task division before starting.
The game wasn’t taken beyond the jam, but it was a valuable lesson in scoping for tight deadlines and teamwork.
