The Cycle


Description

As an owl of the night, fly, perch and dive through a snowy ecosystem on a mission to catch your prey off guard. Use your natural instincts and abilities to uncover yummy critters from their hidey holes. Will your strategy and skill keep you alive to see beyond this endless night, or will the immersive song of the wind wisp you away.

Project Info

Role: Gameplay, Physics, and System Programmer. VFX artist
Team size: 8
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Tools: Perforce, Blender, Maya
Duration: 48 hours
Date: January 2026
Awards: Best Gameplay Design McGameJam 2026
Theme: The Hunt

Personal Notes

  • As a team, we came up with an idea that we settled on to fit the theme, but realized there was no passion in it 2 hours after we began the planning stage. As difficult as the decision was to make, we decided to erase everything and starte over.
  • We were struggling to dig deep and find a way to create a game that wouldn't be expected/overdone with the given theme ('The Hunt'). Considering this, we decided to go with finding the beauty in hunting as a part of nature rather than something gruesome.
  • This was the first game I created the physics for from scratch. I chose not to use anything built in to Unreal because I wanted to get my hands in and make sure the game felt amazing to play, mixing realism with comfort.
  • 80% of the way through the jam I noticed that there was a lack of communication in our team. I decided to confront the problem head on. I talked to each member individually and came up with a solution that utilized both of their strengths in order to create the best game we could make together.
  • This was also my first time doing VFX, but to ensure the flying felt smooth and gave the player a feeling of going fast, they were essencial.
  • I am really proud overall of our accomplishment as a team in creating a beautiful world for the player to explore using smooth physics systems I was able to design.