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Co-Op Mode: Joining Forces

Jace stared at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom like it had personally wronged him.

GROUP PROJECT: Create a vertical slice of a game concept – 3-4 people per team. Presentation in 2 weeks.

It was the first time their class would be assessed as a group. His stomach flipped at the thought.

Group work. Collaboration. Eye contact. Talking. Out loud.

He wanted to disappear into his hoodie.

The teacher read off team assignments.

"Group 3... Robin, Ava, Corey... Jace."

Robin turned to him and gave a thumbs-up. "Hey, we got lucky."

Jace smiled weakly. Internally: total meltdown.

Ave was loud and confident–had already worked on two game jams before this course. Corey was quiet, tall, intense, and very into sound design.

And then there was Jace–still figuring out how to speak in groups without rehearsing every word.

They huddled around a desk to brainstorm.

"What kind of vibe are we going for?" Ava asked, clicking her pen like a fidget.

Robin shrugged. "Fantasy? Sci-fi? Something abstract?"

Jace opened his mouth. Closed it.

Ava looked at him. "Jace, got any ideas?"

His heart jumped.

He hadn't prepared for that.

"Um... what if it's like... a game where the world is glitching as the main character explores it? Not horror. More... emotional. Like the environment changes based on how the character feels."

A pause.

Then Robin nodded. "That's sick."

"That's really cool," Corey added. "I can already hear the ambient distortion."

Ave scribbled it down. "Okay, glitch/-emotion platformer. Let's go."

Jace blinked. They were actually using his idea.

The next few days were a blur of design meetings, sketching, and trying to balance input from everyone. Robin was great at smoothing things out when Ava got a little overbearing. Corey mostly kept his headphones on but chimed in with brilliant suggestions.

And Jace?

Jace started to realize something.

He had ideas. Good ones.

When the team couldn't figure out how to visually show the character's emotions, Jace sketched a colour-shifting forest that changed tone based on in-game choices. When they needed a name fore the prototype, he suggested "EchoFade," and no one even questioned it–they just nodded.

Something was clicking.

Not perfectly. Not all at once. But he wasn't just in the group–he was part of it.

One afternoon, during a break, Robin sat next to him on the bench outside the classroom.

"You know you're kinda leading this thing, right?"

Jace blinked. "What? No, I'm just... suggesting stuff."

"Exactly. And everyone's following it. That's leadership, J."

He felt a heat rush to his cheeks. "I don't know if I'm built for that."

"Maybe not before. But maybe you are now."

That night, Jace lay on his bed, sketchpad open, headphones playing the ambient track Corey sent. The scene was coming together–trees glitching, skies shifting colour, a quiet little avatar walking through a fragile world that changed with every step.

He realized something else, too.

He wasn't just building a game.

He was building something of himself into it.

And people saw it.

Day 18: group project. Gave input. Led things. didn't panic. People listened.

Maybe I'me more capable than I thought.