{"author_link":"\/users\/proxy-games","author_name":"Proxy-Games","author_uid":"proxy-games","comments":[],"epoch":1650535155,"event":"LD50","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":293304,"likes":4,"metadata":{"p_key":"166337","p_author":"Proxy-Games","p_authorkey":"1262774","p_urlkey":"392081","p_title":"Bitboy Postmortum - Decieving Players, Attempting Meta, and The Lessons Learned","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD50","p_time":"1650535155","p_likes":"4","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1262774","us_name":"Proxy-Games","us_username":"proxy-games","event_start":"1648857600","event_key":"110","event_name":"Ludum Dare 50"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD50","removed_author":false},"_superparent":276397,"_trust":2,"author":262774,"body":"![Bitboy_Postmortum.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e471.png)\n\n## Hello!\n\nThis will be my final post coverall the development\/analysis of **[Bitboy](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy)**. This is going to be a bit of a unconventional postmortem-rather than covering the overall development of the game, this post is more intended as an analysis of the response to Bitboy, and deciphering what ended up working, what didn't, and the lessons learned both when making the game and when watching the response to it. *As a result, this post will contain spoilers! If you haven't played the game yet, I recommend you do, as a lot of what makes Bitboy work is the surprise going into it. However, feel free to keep reading if you don't care. I don't judge.*\n\nIf you would like posts that go into the more technical side of things, I made two posts-one about [how the game pulls off the refresh mechanic](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-how-the-game-pulls-off-the-refresh-mechanic), and one that covers the [the graphical glitch effects in the game and how they were pulled off](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-making-a-game-feel-corrupted-1).\n\n\n### WHAT WORKED\n\n**The Idea:** The overall response to *Bitboy* in terms of the idea-a meta narrative experience that is designed to initially seem like an average Ludum Dare entry before unveiling itself to be deeper than expected-was generally celebrated by those who discovered the twist. While meta games have appeared in Ludum Dare before, very few actively try to subvert expectations by setting up the expectations of being a mediocre Ludum Dare game. It made for a risky idea that required good pacing and execution, and luckily *Bitboy* seemed to manage those things quite well. It was also one that, at least for me, had a lot of soul. \n\nIt was a game mainly designed as a love letter to the games in Ludum Dare that get lost in the wave of content due to not standing out as much as the big contenders. There are a lot of experiences each Ludum Dare that deserve love and attention that simply do not get it. This was something I saw during Ludum Dare 49-my first game jam-and it ended up inspiring me to create a game that sets itself up purposefully to seem like a mediocre, unimpressive entry in the jam, only to subvert those expectations with a meta narrative experience that was deeper than anyone gave it credit for. *Bitboy's* end goal was to create an experience that rewarded players that give love and attention to those entries, the one that end up lost in the craziness each Ludum Dare, the most.\n\n**Taking Advantage of The Browser:** The usage of browser refreshing as a game mechanic to progress the story was an idea that was praised by people overall, due to it being a generally unique approach to meta that helped give the game its own identity. While meta games aren't common in Ludum Dare, they do happen, and at that point it becomes a question of what makes *Bitboy* special. The answer to that (alongside the implementation of meta into an unconventional genre for it, an infinite runner) is the usage of refreshing the page and taking full advantage of the nature of it being a browser game. I simply don't think *Bitboy* would be the same game, or have the same effect, if it were a downloadable experience.\n\n![Bitboy_CORRUPT01.gif](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e477.gif)\n\n**The Effects:** The visual effects used to represent the games corruption were also considered very well done, due to the purposeful usage of actual graphical glitches and errors that would occur in other games. I won't go too much into this, [as I have already made a post covering the effects](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-making-a-game-feel-corrupted-1), but the overall consensus was that these effects did an excellent job at genuinely making it feel like the game was breaking.\n\n**The Implementation of the Theme:** The overall consensus was that *Bitboy* did a good job implementing the theme in a unorthodox way. The initial setup of the theme being applied via the inevitable disaster of a meteor hitting Earth, only for it to be subverted with the inevitable deletion of the game was considered as being well done. The additional implementation of the theme with the inevitable ending of the game (subverting the expectations that the game would just loop through the same segment of gameplay over and over again) was also considered well done by those who reached the true ending.\n\n**The Audio:** While the audio is not all mine-the glass breaking sound effect was from online, and the instrumentation used for *Bitboy's* music was from a soundfount pack called GMGSx.SF2 (the actual composition of the music was AI-generated), the response to the sound effects overall were generally positive, with only minor notes about some audio being slightly quiet or low pitched.\n\n### WHAT DIDN'T\n\n![bitboy01.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e486.png)\n\n**The Dialogue System:** Easily the number one complaint about *Bitboy* is the dialogue system. It's an issue where I understand why it happened-it was my first ever attempt at a dialogue system, and I struggled a lot with getting the dialogue and cutscenes to work properly (Easily the biggest time waster for me this jam was that I spent four hours fixing a bug where in the intro cutscene, the game would softlock after Bit yeeted himself out a window-it was horrible). While I managed to pull together a system that functioned well, most of the text would be read out to slowly, hurting the pacing. The most egregious of these were the segments with the void-an unknown character that would appear at the end of each loop. Overall, while I can forgive myself for the issues with the system since it was my first time, the fact that I never considered implementing a fast forward button for text is still one that pains me. Hindsight is 20\/20.\n\n**The Controls:** What ended up being the second biggest issue with the game was the controls. Initially, during the panic of getting the game up on the Ludum Dare page, I had only listed 'C' as the button for sliding, when 'Left Control' was also usable. Due to how close the buttons are on the keyboard, this resulted in a very uncomfortable gameplay experience for several people. Once I realized the error, I quickly updated the page descriptions. Beyond that, many wish that the dialogue system had a key mapping for it, as using both mouse and keyboard was considered unnecessary.\n\n### WHAT IS COMPLICATED\n\n![bitboy04.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e490.png)\n\n**The Gameplay and The Graphics:** For better or worse, *Bitboy* succeeded in setting itself up as a seemingly unimpressive entry, and the way it had done this was through the simplistic gameplay and graphics. This was admittedly by design-the very simple gameplay, with only two obstacles to avoid, was done in order to make the game feel monotonous and repetitive, and the graphics were done in a very simplistic manner in order to ensure all screenshots of the game didn't give a strong impression. These were elements that were ultimately scarified for the sake of setting up the expectations to be subverted. Doesn't stop them from being mediocre, regardless.\n\nEven ignoring the intention, there *are\/were* problems here. The vents blended in too well with background buildings for some people, making platforming difficult. The jump was also floaty to some people, which make platforming even more of a struggle. This really hurt the game in terms of getting people to the twist, which would happen after 60-90 seconds of platforming (even through several runs\/deaths). While people enjoyed the expressiveness of the characters, the animations were less well received due to the very simple animation of Bit running and jumping being contrasted with an oddly smooth sliding animation.\n\nSpeaking of the slide, a *lot* of people had issues with it, being unable to slide under objects even when they appeared to be able to go under it. It turned out that I made a critical error-the slide was framerate dependent. As a result, those with low framerates basically experienced a game that was impossible to play. This was quickly patched out.\n\n**The Pacing:** *Bitboy*, for the most part, seemed to nail the landing with it's pacing, allowing most people to discover the twist and find out what the game truly was. Despite that, however, a sizable portion of players didn't. It might've been due to the slow dialogue, or it might've been due to the unimpressive\/problematic gameplay, but regardless, this was *really bad*. Much of the game rode on the twist and the subverting of the expectations of it being a mediocre and unimpressive game jam entry in order to surprise people. However, as a result of the decision to design the game to come across that way, *Bitboy* has a massive, fundamental issue that the game never really addresses.\n\nWhat does *Bitboy* offer to players who never found the twist?\n\n...Not much, and that was by my own design, tragically. If players didn't find the twist, then the game would simply remain the very thing that it had set up expectations for, and it would be rated appropriately. The end result is that I've created a game where about a quarter of the comments on the game were more about the fake game that was used to hide what the game actually was. I've created a game where I really have *no idea* how it is going to review, because there's a real divide here on *what game is even getting reviewed*. On one side, there are those who reviewed a meta narrative experience that sets up expectations of mediocrity in the player only to shatter them, and on the other, there are those who reviewed an okayish infinite runner.\n\nI do find it important to note that this isn't the fault of those people-it's an indication that I had failed in my design. This is more to note what an odd experience it has been reading the reviews on the game.\n\nIt's certainly been interesting.\n\n![Bitboy_FinalThoughts.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e48a.png)\n\n### MY FINAL THOUGHTS ON BITBOY\n\n*Bitboy* is a game that, for better or for worse, succeeds in its first goal of setting the expectations it aims to subvert. The game makes itself come across as a decent but not noteworthy game jam entry, from the graphics and gameplay, to the Ludum Dare page and promo picture itself (Or at least the original one, anyways. It got replaced about 2 days ago.) However, issues with the pacing-whether it'd be from the slow dialogue speed, or the issues with the controls and gameplay-resulted in a experience that didn't succeed in its second goal of subverting the aforementioned expectations, at least for some players.\n\nBut for most players, it *did* achieved that goal, and I'm very happy about that. This game was *not* easy to design, due to having to create an experience that comes across as mediocre to the player, while still incentivizing the player to stay around long enough for the other foot to drop. It was a game that also needed to encourage player experimentation and curiousity, and get them to do something-the refreshing of the page-without ever bluntly saying it is a mechanic of the game. This resulted in a odd game design experience that left me in very unfamiliar territory or forced me to break traditional rules I had for game design. Despite that, the game got finished on time, and the response to it has been more positive than I ever expected it to be. I was concerned no one would ever make it past the fake WebGL screen-that they would never figure out the refresh mechanic-but people did, and the secret the game held was discovered more times than it wasn't. In the end, I can say that I'm proud of my work on *Bitboy*, and I can't say that about a lot of my projects.\n\n \nSo that's it. For one final time, **thank you to everyone who gave time to my game**, whether you found out the game's true nature or not. It has resulted in a fascinating experience, from watching streamers play the game and discover the twist, to watching people in the comments try to warn others not to underestimate the game. You all gave me a wonderful experience this game jam, both through your comments and through your games, and I hope my game did the same for you.\n\n*See you soon!*","comments":0,"created":"2022-04-21T07:16:24Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":293304,"love":4,"love-timestamp":"2022-04-21T12:55:58Z","meta":[],"modified":"2022-04-27T04:56:04Z","name":"Bitboy Postmortum - Decieving Players, Attempting Meta, and The Lessons Learned","node-timestamp":"2022-04-27T04:56:04Z","parent":289280,"parents":[1,5,9,276397,289280],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-postmortem-decieving-players-attempting-meta-and-the-lessons-learned","published":"2022-04-21T09:59:15Z","scope":"public","slug":"bitboy-postmortem-decieving-players-attempting-meta-and-the-lessons-learned","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":913020},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"293304","n_urlkey":"392081","n_parent":"289280","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-postmortem-decieving-players-attempting-meta-and-the-lessons-learned","n_slug":"bitboy-postmortem-decieving-play","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"262774","n_created":"1650525384","n_modified":"1651035364","n_version":"913020","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-postmortem-decieving-players-attempting-meta-and-the-lessons-learned","text":"![Bitboy_Postmortum.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e471.png)\n\n## Hello!\n\nThis will be my final post coverall the development\/analysis of **[Bitboy](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy)**. This is going to be a bit of a unconventional postmortem-rather than covering the overall development of the game, this post is more intended as an analysis of the response to Bitboy, and deciphering what ended up working, what didn't, and the lessons learned both when making the game and when watching the response to it. *As a result, this post will contain spoilers! If you haven't played the game yet, I recommend you do, as a lot of what makes Bitboy work is the surprise going into it. However, feel free to keep reading if you don't care. I don't judge.*\n\nIf you would like posts that go into the more technical side of things, I made two posts-one about [how the game pulls off the refresh mechanic](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-how-the-game-pulls-off-the-refresh-mechanic), and one that covers the [the graphical glitch effects in the game and how they were pulled off](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-making-a-game-feel-corrupted-1).\n\n\n### WHAT WORKED\n\n**The Idea:** The overall response to *Bitboy* in terms of the idea-a meta narrative experience that is designed to initially seem like an average Ludum Dare entry before unveiling itself to be deeper than expected-was generally celebrated by those who discovered the twist. While meta games have appeared in Ludum Dare before, very few actively try to subvert expectations by setting up the expectations of being a mediocre Ludum Dare game. It made for a risky idea that required good pacing and execution, and luckily *Bitboy* seemed to manage those things quite well. It was also one that, at least for me, had a lot of soul. \n\nIt was a game mainly designed as a love letter to the games in Ludum Dare that get lost in the wave of content due to not standing out as much as the big contenders. There are a lot of experiences each Ludum Dare that deserve love and attention that simply do not get it. This was something I saw during Ludum Dare 49-my first game jam-and it ended up inspiring me to create a game that sets itself up purposefully to seem like a mediocre, unimpressive entry in the jam, only to subvert those expectations with a meta narrative experience that was deeper than anyone gave it credit for. *Bitboy's* end goal was to create an experience that rewarded players that give love and attention to those entries, the one that end up lost in the craziness each Ludum Dare, the most.\n\n**Taking Advantage of The Browser:** The usage of browser refreshing as a game mechanic to progress the story was an idea that was praised by people overall, due to it being a generally unique approach to meta that helped give the game its own identity. While meta games aren't common in Ludum Dare, they do happen, and at that point it becomes a question of what makes *Bitboy* special. The answer to that (alongside the implementation of meta into an unconventional genre for it, an infinite runner) is the usage of refreshing the page and taking full advantage of the nature of it being a browser game. I simply don't think *Bitboy* would be the same game, or have the same effect, if it were a downloadable experience.\n\n![Bitboy_CORRUPT01.gif](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e477.gif)\n\n**The Effects:** The visual effects used to represent the games corruption were also considered very well done, due to the purposeful usage of actual graphical glitches and errors that would occur in other games. I won't go too much into this, [as I have already made a post covering the effects](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/50\/bitboy\/bitboy-making-a-game-feel-corrupted-1), but the overall consensus was that these effects did an excellent job at genuinely making it feel like the game was breaking.\n\n**The Implementation of the Theme:** The overall consensus was that *Bitboy* did a good job implementing the theme in a unorthodox way. The initial setup of the theme being applied via the inevitable disaster of a meteor hitting Earth, only for it to be subverted with the inevitable deletion of the game was considered as being well done. The additional implementation of the theme with the inevitable ending of the game (subverting the expectations that the game would just loop through the same segment of gameplay over and over again) was also considered well done by those who reached the true ending.\n\n**The Audio:** While the audio is not all mine-the glass breaking sound effect was from online, and the instrumentation used for *Bitboy's* music was from a soundfount pack called GMGSx.SF2 (the actual composition of the music was AI-generated), the response to the sound effects overall were generally positive, with only minor notes about some audio being slightly quiet or low pitched.\n\n### WHAT DIDN'T\n\n![bitboy01.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e486.png)\n\n**The Dialogue System:** Easily the number one complaint about *Bitboy* is the dialogue system. It's an issue where I understand why it happened-it was my first ever attempt at a dialogue system, and I struggled a lot with getting the dialogue and cutscenes to work properly (Easily the biggest time waster for me this jam was that I spent four hours fixing a bug where in the intro cutscene, the game would softlock after Bit yeeted himself out a window-it was horrible). While I managed to pull together a system that functioned well, most of the text would be read out to slowly, hurting the pacing. The most egregious of these were the segments with the void-an unknown character that would appear at the end of each loop. Overall, while I can forgive myself for the issues with the system since it was my first time, the fact that I never considered implementing a fast forward button for text is still one that pains me. Hindsight is 20\/20.\n\n**The Controls:** What ended up being the second biggest issue with the game was the controls. Initially, during the panic of getting the game up on the Ludum Dare page, I had only listed 'C' as the button for sliding, when 'Left Control' was also usable. Due to how close the buttons are on the keyboard, this resulted in a very uncomfortable gameplay experience for several people. Once I realized the error, I quickly updated the page descriptions. Beyond that, many wish that the dialogue system had a key mapping for it, as using both mouse and keyboard was considered unnecessary.\n\n### WHAT IS COMPLICATED\n\n![bitboy04.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e490.png)\n\n**The Gameplay and The Graphics:** For better or worse, *Bitboy* succeeded in setting itself up as a seemingly unimpressive entry, and the way it had done this was through the simplistic gameplay and graphics. This was admittedly by design-the very simple gameplay, with only two obstacles to avoid, was done in order to make the game feel monotonous and repetitive, and the graphics were done in a very simplistic manner in order to ensure all screenshots of the game didn't give a strong impression. These were elements that were ultimately scarified for the sake of setting up the expectations to be subverted. Doesn't stop them from being mediocre, regardless.\n\nEven ignoring the intention, there *are\/were* problems here. The vents blended in too well with background buildings for some people, making platforming difficult. The jump was also floaty to some people, which make platforming even more of a struggle. This really hurt the game in terms of getting people to the twist, which would happen after 60-90 seconds of platforming (even through several runs\/deaths). While people enjoyed the expressiveness of the characters, the animations were less well received due to the very simple animation of Bit running and jumping being contrasted with an oddly smooth sliding animation.\n\nSpeaking of the slide, a *lot* of people had issues with it, being unable to slide under objects even when they appeared to be able to go under it. It turned out that I made a critical error-the slide was framerate dependent. As a result, those with low framerates basically experienced a game that was impossible to play. This was quickly patched out.\n\n**The Pacing:** *Bitboy*, for the most part, seemed to nail the landing with it's pacing, allowing most people to discover the twist and find out what the game truly was. Despite that, however, a sizable portion of players didn't. It might've been due to the slow dialogue, or it might've been due to the unimpressive\/problematic gameplay, but regardless, this was *really bad*. Much of the game rode on the twist and the subverting of the expectations of it being a mediocre and unimpressive game jam entry in order to surprise people. However, as a result of the decision to design the game to come across that way, *Bitboy* has a massive, fundamental issue that the game never really addresses.\n\nWhat does *Bitboy* offer to players who never found the twist?\n\n...Not much, and that was by my own design, tragically. If players didn't find the twist, then the game would simply remain the very thing that it had set up expectations for, and it would be rated appropriately. The end result is that I've created a game where about a quarter of the comments on the game were more about the fake game that was used to hide what the game actually was. I've created a game where I really have *no idea* how it is going to review, because there's a real divide here on *what game is even getting reviewed*. On one side, there are those who reviewed a meta narrative experience that sets up expectations of mediocrity in the player only to shatter them, and on the other, there are those who reviewed an okayish infinite runner.\n\nI do find it important to note that this isn't the fault of those people-it's an indication that I had failed in my design. This is more to note what an odd experience it has been reading the reviews on the game.\n\nIt's certainly been interesting.\n\n![Bitboy_FinalThoughts.png](\/\/\/raw\/672\/04\/z\/4e48a.png)\n\n### MY FINAL THOUGHTS ON BITBOY\n\n*Bitboy* is a game that, for better or for worse, succeeds in its first goal of setting the expectations it aims to subvert. The game makes itself come across as a decent but not noteworthy game jam entry, from the graphics and gameplay, to the Ludum Dare page and promo picture itself (Or at least the original one, anyways. It got replaced about 2 days ago.) However, issues with the pacing-whether it'd be from the slow dialogue speed, or the issues with the controls and gameplay-resulted in a experience that didn't succeed in its second goal of subverting the aforementioned expectations, at least for some players.\n\nBut for most players, it *did* achieved that goal, and I'm very happy about that. This game was *not* easy to design, due to having to create an experience that comes across as mediocre to the player, while still incentivizing the player to stay around long enough for the other foot to drop. It was a game that also needed to encourage player experimentation and curiousity, and get them to do something-the refreshing of the page-without ever bluntly saying it is a mechanic of the game. This resulted in a odd game design experience that left me in very unfamiliar territory or forced me to break traditional rules I had for game design. Despite that, the game got finished on time, and the response to it has been more positive than I ever expected it to be. I was concerned no one would ever make it past the fake WebGL screen-that they would never figure out the refresh mechanic-but people did, and the secret the game held was discovered more times than it wasn't. In the end, I can say that I'm proud of my work on *Bitboy*, and I can't say that about a lot of my projects.\n\n \nSo that's it. For one final time, **thank you to everyone who gave time to my game**, whether you found out the game's true nature or not. It has resulted in a fascinating experience, from watching streamers play the game and discover the twist, to watching people in the comments try to warn others not to underestimate the game. You all gave me a wonderful experience this game jam, both through your comments and through your games, and I hope my game did the same for you.\n\n*See you soon!*","title":"Bitboy Postmortum - Decieving Players, Attempting Meta, and The Lessons Learned","wayback_source":[]}