GameRoom is my 48 hours compo entry for LudumDare32. GameRoom takes place inside a flashy arcade theme park which is filled with multiple game arenas. Each game arena offer a different kind of game with its own challenges. This game arena focusses on Ring Toss.

Now sit back, relax and allow me to tell you a tale where in 48 hours a game developer went through the process of creating

Dragon’s Den

To GameRoom

Before the theme was even announced I had already decided that I am gonna try a 3D one person game this time. This will be my second time attempting to make a 3D first person game. The last one I did was a while ago during 7dfps(7 day first person shooter) challenge. I was thrilled to hear the theme (An Unconventional Weapon) as fits perfectly with the genre of the game I had in my mind. Now all I have to do is to come up with an unconventional situation that could possibly use an unconventional weapon and I am gold. Out of nowhere I thought of Ring toss. Its pretty unconventional to use ring toss as a weapon and using it in first person makes total sense. Great, I said to myself. How about hunting dragons using ring toss? Similar to what Hiccup did with a hammer in How to Train Your Dragon training arena. I patted myself on the back, “brilliant idea! (or may be not)” :D. This feels doable in under 48hours. So lets jam now!

First Few Hours

Within few hours I had the player movement working in the first person. The ring toss mechanic was also fairly functional. I was making really good progress so far. I started looking for level design inspirations that are not constrained and offers enough freedom of movement to the player in a relatively small world. I setup a very simple level with walls surrounding the entire arena and few walls here and there creating a sense of disconnection and at the same time dividing the arena into small rooms and corridors. I placed few ammo fountains that will spit out ammo at a fixed rate. The player is free to collect the ammo whenever needed. The ammo is used to shoot/throw the ring. I had this notion where the game will offer 3 different types of rings consisting of three different shapes: square, triangle and circle. Each ring is composed of a fixed number of particles or cubes and the player is required to have those many particles or cubes in their inventory to be able to shoot the ring of that shape. The player can easily switch between different types of rings. Each ring will differ from other in some attributes like damage, size etc. This all worked pretty well. Bed time 😀

A Second Thought

As I woke up the next morning, I added my first AI unit. As soon as that happened, I started seeing some troubles with the way the game is played. It wasn’t as fun as it looked in the movie :p. Not that I was aiming for it exactly but something wasn’t right. I spent some time trying to figure it out but I wasn’t sold on it completely. I lost my entire Saturday morning and half of the afternoon trying to make it right but no success. Now I am at a point where I need to make a decision whether I should keep iterating on this or change the gameplay completely but keep the same mechanic. I took the hard decision of converting the game into a simple arcade style ring toss simulator. It was a bit disappointing but I rather have something working as opposed to something that is half done.

A New Beginning

New beginnings offers new excitements. As I work toward turning my game into an arcade theme park simulator, I was flooded with some really good ideas and I had to convince myself that this is a 48 hour deal and not a 48 month deal. My overall vision is to create an arcade game theme park. The park consists of several arenas. Each arena is dedicated to a different style of game with variety of challenges. The more and better you play, the more you get to play. For eg; if you beat the high score at a challenge or win a special timed challenge you will earn in-game quarters that you can then use to access more games. Of course, GameRoom (aka Ring Toss Room) is just one tiny part of the park, its like one bit in a 64 bit integer. The possibilities are endless here. Every challenge will showcase the names and avatar pics of the top players. Beating the high score and having your name showcased in front of every challenge is a dream of every player. The game will not impose any restriction on the player as to what they should play and when they should play. If the player thinks they have got the skills to do it (with or without practice), the game is ready for you. There will also be sufficient arenas for training and practice that will help you hone your skills.

GameRoom is a reflection of this thought process. Its not perfect but it proves the point that such things could be fun and enjoyable either solo or in multiplayer if implemented properly and on a large scale. GameRoom comes with a practice arena located right in front of the main entrance. In addition to that, there are 7 other challenges that the player can partake. The road ahead was very straightforward as I have clear vision as to what I am trying to deliver at the end of 48 hours. I added one challenge after another and without any realization the compo time was up.

Thats all folks!

If you haven’t played and rated GameRoom, please do so. Thanks for playing!!!

Till Next Time!

Anshul

Tags: gamedev, ld32, Ludumdare, postmortem