Ah, it’s taken me a while to do a post mortem. This was my first solo jam, I’ve always worked with a partner for Ludum Dare so when my go-to collaborator wasn’t available (busy with another game project) I decided I’d try a go solo. We normally work under the name Hoqjed

Into the Storm… Alone – Doing this thing by yourself is a slightly different beast. There was a point mid-jam… when I had an alright amount of progress programming-wise, and I still needed to add in art and audio. I sat and thought to myself “what I finish now is all that the game will be, there’s no one to help with assets, or help with the logic, or help scrounge for audio”. I’m accustomed working solo in my personal non-jam work… but the time constraints really emphasize it in a way I’ve never really experienced before. Ultimately, I’m really proud of what I was able to do, and I’m thankful for my friends still taking time out of their busy schedules to help test the game along the way.

The Concept – I settled on the idea of riot control because I liked how it’s a bit of a grey area determining how to handle that kind of situation. I also liked the idea of trying to capture that tense atmosphere. After a little bit of research, I learned more about Active Denial System and read somewhere that these sort of things are developed to be more “social media friendly”. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know, but I found it fascinating and decided my in-game weapon would be a sort of an exaggerated version. The exaggeration came in the form of Big Brother-y emotional control over the crowd.

What went right – Well, the concept for one was surprisingly solid. I’m really happy I was able to come up with an idea that resonated with me and also could lead to interesting and free-form game mechanics. The art style came together somewhat well considering the little amount of time I spent on that portion, and I was able to find some really nice audio and edit it to create a really nice atmosphere overall. The crowd logic also turned out well. There were a lot of little nuances to their reactions… like how they can run away, take a breather off-screen and then come back even more enraged. I also liked that I kept the game open to be explored, rather than demanding players approach the situation a specific way. I leave it completely up to players to decide what to do and act less like a guiding hand and more as an onlooker. The “win”/lose messages presented to you after the scenario has ended are very cold, and don’t necessarily take a stance on the players actions. I’d like to think that this allows the person playing to reflect on their own actions more, and have a more personal experience with the game.

What went wrong – The crowd reactions and giving people feedback on what was happening. This is the downfall of the original submission, and for everything that went right this takes away a lot of the positive aspects. I really learned how important it is to not only create interesting game systems… but to give feedback for how said system reacts to input. I still continue to get comments about how difficult it can be to determine the effects of the emotional changes on the crowd. I was aware of this issue the night before submission, but I just wasn’t able to fix it in time. The feedback for how you’re expected to use the weapon could have also been improved.

Post Jam and the Shadow of Failure – I’ve created a post jam version that addresses a LOT of the issues with the crowd reactions people were experiencing. They now animate based on their strongest felt emotion (or don’t if none of the emotions are high/low enough). There are still issues with the actual balance of the game, but overall it’s a much improved experience. But for all the changes I make to the post jam version, I still continue to get comments about same problems with the original submission. I know that most people are just going to play the original, get burnt out because of its issues, and move on. But it’s rather annoying having an improved version and still getting complaints about the original’s issues. It feels like to some degree I just can’t get away from my initial failures with the game.

I’ll continue to work and improve the post jam version and maybe make another post about it when it’s more where I want it to be. Future plans include improvements all around to the art and color scheme, tank animations for damage level, more balanced crowd reactions, maybe a day/night cycle since I’ve actually already got the art in for that (it was just never implemented).

Check out the game here:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=26681