I think you're wondering why I put this clickbait title, especially if you're an artist. So let me explain you our journey through this Ludum Dare 40 and how what went during the developpement of One button Hero.

The beginning

I never make post-mortem of game jams because usually the developpement of the game run smoothly. However this time, something was different.

I've participated in a lot of game jams with my sound designer/friend Aurélien, wheither it's a Ludum Dare or not. But everytime, it's just us and while he's doing the sound and music (and working for other teams), I'm doing the game design, level design, code, art, ... well it's a lot.

But for once, he found a guy, an artist even, who was willing to work with us. The guy was good, able to make both 2D and 3D assets, used to make UI elements, well, everything was perfect.

But after some time, something was off...

Why this title

We started like more than 12h late we a first meeting. I already had the idea of the game, and everyone was ok with it. The artist told us what style he could make for the game, and to have a good margin we decided to go with pixel art. At this point, it was good, he said he would start on some concept art.

Then time had passed, I put some gifs of the game to show my progress in term of code, but still no news from him. It went like this until like 8h before the end of the jam, then after putting some pressure, he said that he would do everything soon. This wasn't the best scenario, because he would be a rush to have everything ready, but 8h was doable.

Then it was like 5h before the end. Still no news, until Aurélien the sound designer said "Go ahead, I think we can't count on him". And so we were alone, at the end of the jam, just both of us with no art at all ...

How we managed it

So right now, you're probably saying "But I saw your game, it has some arts, how is it possible!?" and that's a good question. I just remembered opening Pyxel Edit and then I probably went into "Ultra instinct" mode.

The main thing was doing pixel art and making everything really small. For example the tiles are 16x16 pixels and the character and enemies are 32x32. Also I tried to minimize the amount of animation frames.

But mainly the big thing was to stop doing the level design and the polish of the controls. This was a hard decision though because it was either had a good gameplay from A to Z with maybe some lacks in the feedbacks or having something decent to show.

In my opinion, the graphics was the best solution as it was giving some "life" to the game that was otherwise really blocky with lot of placeholders.

Here's a before/after:

What was good

Anyway, despite that moment of panic, the fact of having a graphic artist made me spend more time on the level design and difficulty balance in order to craft a solid gameplay even if far from perfect.

Also, some enemies are missing like the flying one, and some level design elements like the bumper which are already working in game had to be cut from it due to the lack of graphic representation but could be part of an update later after the jam.

What's next

For now, I think we will let the game as it is for a week or two, and if the feedbacks are positive (which seems to be the case at the moment) , we will probably make an update with a complete level design and new features.

In conclusion

So sorry for the rant, it needed to come out. And no, I don't think artists are traitors, this was obviously a bad exeperience that probably doesn't happen too often.

Anyway, despite all that, this game jam was a fun experience as always. Aurelien and I are proud of what we have made and we'll probably be part of the next one.

If you have read this far, you're probably a very curious being, so I want to thank you and hope to see you in the next Ludum Dare.

And don't forget ...