The Last Thylacine

Kathy was delighted when Marcus Temby teamed up her in the Global Gam Jam 2022. The theme was "Duality" so they set out to make a game which reversed player expectations - at first you are a hunter, then you are the mate of the wolf you just killed. Being rushed in a game jam, the ending was never finished properly, but Kathy and Mark are proud of their little game.

Full playthrough.

Characters

Thylacine being a dog-like creature with tiger stripes on its back end stands next to game icons like a speaker indicating it has an audio source, and circles being waypoint markers.

A thylacine is a Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf. Originally found throughout the Australian mainland, by the time of European colonization in 1788 they only existed on the island of Tasmania. The last thylacine died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936 and there is limited film footage of it owned by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

A famale thylacine stands beside two pups beside a rocky lair.

In the game, the female thylacine waits at the lair guarding two pups.

The mother sends her son to kill the thylacine although the son protests the thylacine has not hurt the sheep.

Setting

An overview of the terrain in camouflage colours shows the outline of a path system in the shape of a wolf's head.

Look closely and you will see the design principle of the paths.

In The Last Thylacine, the setting is almost a character in itself! See how hard the engine is working even in an empty scene!

Colour setting image which a shaded square inside a wheel with colour values underneath.Picture

Colour setting image which a shaded square inside a wheel with colour values underneath.

Marcus went all out on the terrain. When the skybox is changed during gameplay, the fog color has to be changed to match. Here are the colors used to match the blue sky then the glowing sunset at the end.

Two placeholder characters looking like robots stand beside wooden buildings and a wooden fence.

If you are doing a proper game jam, you create everything in the game from scratch. Marcus and Kathy were more interested in making a 3D adventure game so they shamelessly used Unity Terrain for the ground and plants, and assets from the Unity Asset store for other 3D art. Here are wooden cabins and a fence made by third parties.

Pile of rocks around cave with thylacine adult and 2 puppies beside it.

The lair was built using rocks placed over and around a cavern built by Marcus using ProBuilder.

Props

Placeholder robot characters stand on either side of an enormous shotgun which looks 5 times bitter that they are.

This handpainted shotgun looks great. It - uh - might be a little big.

Design

As you can see from the flowchart, the wolf is meant to attack the hunter if he makes certain choices. In most cases, the hunter transitions into the thylacine mate. There are 3 ways the game was supposed to end. Unfortunately Kathy and Marcus ran out of time and there is only one ending to the game.

Kathy wrote the script for the game which included all the assets needed at each point of the game.
One stretch goal was to make the game accessible to blind players, but we did not make that goal.

Act, Light, Camera, Place, Music, Ambient sounds, 3D props, Speaker, Actions, FileName, Animations, FileName, Animation, VFX, SFX, Dialog. Then 3 grayed-out boxes for Tutorial narration, SFX narration, Action narration.

Gameplay

Flowchart goes from Intro to Tutorial to Hunting. If the Hunting times out, the hunter is attacked and crawls home to die. If the Hunting does not time out, there is a Lair confrontation. This always leads to an attack if the hunter times out, leaves the lair or approaches it. If the hunter shoots, there is a transition between hunter and thylacine, and the hunter runs. If the hunter gets to his cabin, he throws away his gun. If the thylacine chooses to attack again, the hunter crawls home to die. If the thyacine chooses to attach again, their eyes meet and the transition starts again and the hunter says,

Programming

Marcus and Kathy did a lot of programming together over Discord. However Marcus was responsible for most of the programming. Kathy did the sound mixing and UI coding and tried to get the third party controller working with the new Unity input system. In the end she changed over to the old Unity input system and dressed up Ethan, the Unity third person character, as a colonial. Thankfully Marcus found a hat for him.

Sound

Voice acting

Marcus Temby voiced the Hunter and read out Rudyard Kipling's poem at the end.

Kathy Smart voiced the Mother.

Music

Marcus and Kathy copied Australian colonial songs from YouTube so this game can never be distributed commercially as they do not own these sounds.

Sound effects

There are 62 sound effects collected mostly from FreeSound, as follows.

A fence borders a green field with tall trees in the distance.

Birds in treesProSoundhttps://download.prosoundeffects.com/#!details?id=814198
BreathingOculusAudioPack01voice_male_breathing_01
Crawlingkrnashhttps://freesound.org/people/krnash/sounds/389794/
Crowdavidworksonlinehttps://www.freesound.org/people/davidworksonline/sounds/54973/
FootstepsOculusAudioPack01
Movement through bushesbody_movement_through_bushes_03
Sheep Sheeps Out at Feed 1 - QuickSounds.com

Shot 1Marregheritihttps://freesound.org/people/Marregheriti/sounds/266105/
Reload 1mtadderhttps://freesound.org/people/mtadder/sounds/99217/
Shot 2MATRIXXX_https://freesound.org/people/MATRIXXX_/sounds/408099/
Reloads 2,3,6FST180081https://freesound.org/people/FST180081/sounds/441822/
Shot 3michorvathhttps://freesound.org/people/michorvath/sounds/427595/
Shot 4filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522282/
Reload 4Bratishhttps://freesound.org/people/Bratish/sounds/500294/
Shot 5filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522282/
Reload 5yeet2020202020https://freesound.org/people/yeet2020202020/sounds/537724/
Shot 6filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522285/
Shots+reloads 7,8lensflare8642https://freesound.org/people/lensflare8642/sounds/145209/
Shot and reload 9Marregheritihttps://freesound.org/people/Marregheriti/sounds/266105/
Shot and reload 10Deganothhttps://freesound.org/people/Deganoth/sounds/348670/
Shot and reload 11Deganothhttps://freesound.org/people/Deganoth/sounds/348718/
Bullet-hits-dirt_01toxicwafflezzhttps://freesound.org/people/toxicwafflezz/sounds/150837/
Bullet-hits-dirt_02toxicwafflezzhttps://freesound.org/people/toxicwafflezz/sounds/150838/
Bullet-hits-dirt_03toxicwafflezzhttps://freesound.org/people/toxicwafflezz/sounds/150839/
Bullet-hits-dirt_04filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522274/
Bullet-hits-dirt_04filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522274/
Bullet-hits-dirt_05filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522375/
Bullet-hits-dirt_05filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522375/
Bullet-hits-dirt_06filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522390/
Bullet-hits-dirt_06filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522390/
Bullet-hits-dirt_07filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522403/
Bullet-hits-dirt_07filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522403/
Bullet-hits-dirt_08filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522549/
Bullet-hits-dirt_08filmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522549/
Bullet-hits-wolffilmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522505/
Bullet-hits-wolffilmmakersmanualhttps://freesound.org/people/FilmmakersManual/sounds/522505/
Gun-hits-groundLeadyhttps://freesound.org/people/Leady/sounds/12734/

Thylacine faces viewer looking like a red dog with black stripes on its back.

Dogs runningramagochi119638__ramagochi__dogs-running-in-a-forrest-16
Pup1unfahttps://freesound.org/people/unfa/sounds/160478/
Pup2mewselhttps://freesound.org/people/Mewsel/sounds/208031/
Puppies in lairTRPhttps://freesound.org/people/TRP/sounds/575263/
Wolf-about-to-attackLerdavianhttps://freesound.org/people/Lerdavian/sounds/321982/
Wolf-at-bayEminYILDIRIMhttps://freesound.org/people/EminYILDIRIM/sounds/550386/
Wolf-Attack_01EminYILDIRIMhttps://freesound.org/people/EminYILDIRIM/sounds/547368/
Wolf-Attack_02mewselhttps://freesound.org/people/Mewsel/sounds/208031/
Wolf-Attack_03EminYILDIRIMhttps://freesound.org/people/EminYILDIRIM/sounds/547369/
Wolf-howl_01simcotterhttps://freesound.org/people/simcotter/sounds/115357/
Wolf-howl_02simcotterhttps://freesound.org/people/simcotter/sounds/115357/
Wolf-howl_03simcotterhttps://freesound.org/people/simcotter/sounds/115357/
Wolf-howl_04be-steelehttps://freesound.org/people/be-steele/sounds/128469/
Wolf-howl_05be-steelehttps://freesound.org/people/be-steele/sounds/128469/
Wolf-howl_06be-steelehttps://freesound.org/people/be-steele/sounds/128469/
Wolf-howl_07taira-komorihttps://freesound.org/people/Taira%20Komori/sounds/213140/
Wolf-howl_07betchkalhttps://freesound.org/people/betchkal/sounds/500646/
Wolf-howl_08betchkalhttps://freesound.org/people/betchkal/sounds/500646/
Wolf-howl_09betchkalhttps://freesound.org/people/betchkal/sounds/500646/
Wolf-howl_10betchkalhttps://freesound.org/people/betchkal/sounds/500646/
Wolf-howl_11betchkalhttps://freesound.org/people/betchkal/sounds/500646/
Wolf-is-hitvikuserrohttps://freesound.org/people/vikuserro/sounds/341015/
Wolf-mourning-howlEminYILDIRIMhttps://freesound.org/people/EminYILDIRIM/sounds/541282/
Wolf-runningsabotovathttps://freesound.org/people/sabotovat/sounds/414350/
Wolf-snarl-in-distanceChristopher Derphttps://freesound.org/people/Christopherderp/sounds/342204/

UI

The path system is boldly outlined, clearly showing a wolf's head shape, and beside this are 5 choices: Start, How to Play, Settings, Credit and Exit.

The path system in the shape of a wolf's head shown earlier is overlaid with arrows telling the player to use WASD keys to move and left mouse to shoot.

Ending

Marcus reads out Rudyard Kipling's poem "What of the hunting, hunter bold?" at the end. Here is the text of the poem.

A poem is laid over a gameplay image. The poem reads: What of the hunting, hunter bold? -Brother, the watch was long and cold. What of the quarry ye went to kill? -Brother, he crops in the jungle still. Where is the power that made your pride? -Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. Where is the haste that ye hurry by? -Brother, I go to my lair to die. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book.

Download link

The Last Thylacine is available for free download at marcusfromoz.itch.io/thelastthylacine.

Be aware the steering is very sensitive. You need to hold down the W key and steer left and right with your fingers on the A and D keys. Also you may fall through the terrain!

Conclusion

Making a quick game in a game jam is an exhilarating and exhausting exercise. It's a great way of playing with new systems and trying out new things. It gives everyone in the team a good idea of how games are made. But the most important thing is that you always end up knowing your fellow game devs very well as you have worked under pressure together.