We gave ourselves 4 days to build and publish a multiplayer game.

 

No extensions.

No feature creep.

Just accountability.

From February 19–23, 2026, our four-person team — Design Dungeon — committed to a focused game jam. It started as a class requirement.

 

​

It became a real lesson in execution under constraint.

​​​

​

​

The Concept:

​

We built a competitive capture-the-flag experience set in a distant kingdom overrun by zombies.

 

Two teams race to capture three enemy flags while surviving waves of zombie and zombie knight AI.

 

PvP pressure.

PvE chaos.

A four-day deadline.

We agreed early on one rule: protect the core gameplay loop.

 

​

​

Building Under Constraint:

 

All four of us come from a strong Unreal Engine background. This was my teammates’ first time publishing using Roblox Studio.

 

What stood out wasn’t which engine is “better.”

​

It was how the tooling shaped our workflow.

 

Roblox’s Team Create allowed us to work simultaneously in the same environment — no branch management, no merge conflicts, no submission bottlenecks.

 

For a four-day sprint, reducing collaboration overhead directly increased iteration speed.

​

​

​

 

Multiplayer Testing & Iteration:

 

We tested constantly.

 

Launch.

Play together.

Break something.

Fix it.

Test again.

That compressed feedback loop helped us tune:

 

• AI behavior and difficulty

• Flag state logic

• Combat pacing

• Spawn balance

Fast multiplayer testing meant problems surfaced early instead of late.

 

​

​

The Final 24 Hours:

 

The predictable jam crunch arrived:

 

AI edge cases.

Objective logic conflicts.

Combat tuning adjustments.

A deadline that didn’t move.

Instead of adding features, we cut them.

Instead of polishing visuals, we stabilized systems.

Instead of debating, we prioritized.

We completed and published on time.

 

No heroics — just disciplined scope control and steady execution.

 

 

​

 

What This Experience Reinforced:

 

 

• Tools influence team velocity

• Early multiplayer testing prevents late instability

• Scope control is a technical skill

• Real-time collaboration changes decision speed

• Completing and publishing builds confidence

This wasn’t about choosing between Unreal Engine and Roblox.

 

 

It was about understanding what each platform optimizes for — and selecting based on context and constraint.

 

 

Four days isn’t long.

 

But it’s long enough to grow.

​

Proud of what we completed — and even prouder of how we worked as a team.