🎮 PLAY CONFINED (WEB)

Many words, I decided to split this in two parts. A recap now, and a proper post mortem tomorrow.

Part 1: A Recap of Events

Thursday 18:00 CET: T Minus 32 Hours

"Ooh, it's October 1st. That means LD47 is going to happen soon. Let's see what date exactly, so @daanvanyperen and I can figure out our planning. Maybe I'll take the monday off from work."

Imagine my surprise when I found out LD47 was a lot less than two days away. Whoops. To complicate matters, my usual compatriot Daan, He Who Codes Our Games, was also blissfully unaware of this and unfortunately didn't have the time on the weekend.

Initially I thought I wouldn't partake at all, given that I do not possess any real coding ability. I have dabbled with Twine 2 before, making little text games that consist of little else than a few variables and some nested If Statements, and I used to mangle other people's code in LPC back in my MUD days, but that's pretty much it.

I am doing a year long song-a-week project as well, and needed to do most of the work on that on the weekend as well. I don't really know why I then chose to do a solo game, but I did.

Saturday 09:00 CET: I'd Better Wake Up

Ludum Dare 47 was already 9 hours underway when I woke up and checked my phone to see what the theme was. I contemplated ideas for a but, enjoying some coffee, and started a brain storm that yielded three workable ideas. 1. You are imprisoned in cryogenic stasis, interfacing with AIs to try and get out, looping through systems 2. A life simulator, going through stages of life, being prompted with choices. You reincarnate after death until you've done sufficient good in your life, and go to heaven instead. 3. You are stuck on a train, looping through the same train stations. The doors are blocked by various obstacles (a mother with a pram who only just got the baby to sleep, some shady figures up to no good, etc), and you must investigate a way to get out.

I opted for idea 1. Idea 3 was the first one I dropped. It felt like a decent text-adventure premise, but I had no real ideas here, and all I could think of was this feels like it should be a point-and-click adventure instead. Idea 2 was more mechanic-based than narrative-based, and I felt like writing a story, so that one got crossed out next.

I then began working on my song, hoping that a break from the game would give me fresh ideas when I returned. I laid down a the musical bones for a verse and chorus section, opting out of any guitar recording as that was too time-intensive.

Back to the game. I knew I wanted to have some kind of system-to-system navigation between the different AIs in the game, with some cheesy hack-the-mainframe back end to it as well. I started writing in Twine 2, going through the game chronologically. This part was slow, as I was still figuring out the characters and how the player needed to move back and forth.

By mid-evening, I mostly had the narrative intro complete, and put together a basic non-functioning UI for the back-end access of the game, and a logo for the game. Even with a text game, you need something eye-catching that you can use to show things off, so I wanted to have the UI mock-up and logo ready to post on social media and here on ldjam.com.

It was pretty basic, but surely I'd be able to turn it into something more complicated on Sunday. I'd better sleep.

Sunday ??:?? CET: It's Kind of a Blur

I worked on and finished my song throughout the morning and early afternoon, before continuing the game. It's a long-term project of mine that I would choose over finishing my LD entry, so it literally came first.

I spoke with Daan about the project for a while on Discord, bouncing some ideas around. He suggested a potential take on the game that I ended up including. Thanks Daan, even when I'm going at it solo you're improving things!

Back to the game. Logic systems are hard, man. I'm not sure I can do this. Maybe I should just quit. So I really want to give up? This is too complex for my little artist brain. Just push through.

Whelp. Not really more complex, but it works. Power levels are functional, things can be switched on and off depending on access, and the various AIs can be visited. Ugh, work tomorrow. I'd better sleep.

Monday 17:15 CET: Ohgodohgodohgod

I came home from work and simply needed to finish a minimal viable product. Just finish the story, and hopefully there's time left to improve the puzzle element. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wracked my brain on how to put together a puzzle to pass one of the AIs and ended up just having it be a linear passing, no challenge. Not ideal, but I needed to finish the game.

I was still writing things in chronological order, not certain exactly how the story would end. I wrote a log entry for the player to find that one of the characters left. The pieces started to fall into place. I knew how to take Daan's suggestion and fit it into my initial idea.

I finished the story about 30 minutes before the deadline and the start of submission hour. Time to add some player agency? In 30 minutes? No. It was the familiar final-hour feeling that I felt at the end of each previous Ludum Dare. I was tired and took the time to prepare my game page, cover image, a quick blog post and published the game before any possible submission hour server issues could delay going to bed any further. I'd better sleep.

Check back in tomorrow for Part 2: How About That Post Mortem?

And... perhaps play CONFINED now?