https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/trouble-in-the-loop

This was my first time in the compo. I've avoided it in the past because I doubted I'd be able to come up with a game that matched the theme and still have time to make it. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw the theme was "Stuck in a loop". I'd down voted it each time I saw it. For me all games are loops, the moment to moment of a game play loop, or the overarching loops of a meta game? What are games if not sticking players in loops?

Initial planning took about 30 min. I was having a hard time thinking of anything other than literal loops. Doing a level that was in the shape of a loop was the only thing that seemed inspiring to me. My thinking originally was not to have spheres, but little pixelart figures running around. It wasn't to be though! Brushing up on blender to make some level geometry took more time than I wanted, as did figuring out Unity web assembly and itch.io hosting.

I had hoped that the constrained movement of the curved level would mean less work on the character motor and 3rd person camera, but no, both had to be built from scratch. Because the level rotates and the player stays in place, I'm not using real velocities so unity physics weren't reliable. Ended up writing collision responses as well. :sunglasses:

I wanted something to feel a little more gamey, and realized I wasn't going to have time to make a lot of enemies. So what if I just had one? As I was prototyping I found the most interesting part of the game was pushing the opponents ball around, I just needed to give the player a reason to do that... that's where having the opponent steal your Ice Creme Cone came in :icecream: