Alright, so I’ll try to write my post-mortem as well. I was looking forward to this LD, since I finally wanted a good motivation to finish a project, to make as complete game as possible. When the theme was revealed, I wasn’t particulary happy. I liked other themes much better, but I had to start thinking. First thing that came to my mind was that I want to find a unique approach to the theme. I knew I wouldn’t stand out with my development skills, since I’ve never finished any game, so I needed to stand out at least with the idea. And I guess I managed to do that. Although I was definitely not the only one who thought of the Monster Trucks, we were certainly a minority.

So I started making the car. I wanted my MonsterTruck to behave a bit differently than it ended up, but I couldn’t afford to look for a solution the whole weekend. I was using Unity’s wheel colliders, and I could not manage to make them behave correctly when riding over bigger bumps, so I decided to lock the rotation of the truck on 2 axis, which took some of the fun from the gameplay, but at least the car was stable now and I could finally move on a bit.

I needed to find a goal for the game. And what do Monster Trucks usually do? Crush other cars, of course. So I made a little city, put some traffic in it, and I had a goal. But that would be too easy and boring. I needed some kind of enemy. There is a Monster Truck driving through the city, crushing cars, so adding a police as an enemy seemed like a logical solution . And why not make them crazy? And why not make them suicidal? And packed with explosives?

So I had a goal, an enemy, but I wanted a bit more to this. I didn’t want for the player to just die on touch with the police, so I added HP bar, and a Repair Garage, and while at it, I also added Fuel bar and Gas Station. To incorporate these into the score, I decided to put the price for repair and the gas.

At last, I added some finishing touches, little menu with splashscreen, and UI. And there it was, my first finished game!

What Went Good:

Overall gameplay – I think final outcome is not dull, and I’m glad with the game as a whole.

Audio – I’m happy with audio in the game. I wanted to create and record more songs, but the one that is in game already took way too much time, so I decided that 1 and a half minutes should suffice.

What Went “Not Sure”:

Balance – Balance is a matter of many iterations and playtests, but I didnt have much time for that, so I tried to guess the right values and prices in the game to have it fairly hard, yet not impossible to maintain higher score.

What Went Bad:

Graphics – Some people seem to like the graphics, which I’m super happy about, but I wanted it nicer, especially better textures, better models. But again, I’m no artist, so I didn’t want to spend all weekend modelling and texturing, and having no game in the end.

Code – Yeah, the code is pretty ugly, but hey, it works, right?

Emptiness of the stage – I wanted to add more stuff in the city, like trees, various buildings, some fences, handrails on the bridges, …

In conclusion, I’m glad I finally joined the LudumDare and finished my first game!

I want to thank everyone who commented on my game, all of the comments were very kind, and I’m really happy you seem to like the game.

If you haven’t played Monster Truck Rampage yet, feel free to do so right now! And don’t forget to leave your votes and some feedback.