Hello, Ludum Dare!

This is my fourth time participating in the jam, and I have to admit, it was a bit more challenging than usual. Honestly, I was expecting a different theme. I already had an idea for a game, which I was planning to adapt to any theme, but, as often happens in life, plans don’t go as expected, haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr3FVtEKIMA

So I spent the whole of Saturday thinking, trying to come up with a new idea. I know a lot of people recommend not spending more than a couple of hours on brainstorming and just going with the first idea that comes to mind. But that’s not my case. It seems to me that the first ideas that come up are often too cliché and uninspiring. I’d rather do nothing than work on something I don't believe in or find interesting. If I don’t believe in an idea myself, it’s unlikely that the players will, either. I’m just not one of those who do something for the sake of doing it.

Almost immediately after the theme was announced, I got an idea about gnomes—garden gnomes, to be precise. Here’s what my short list of ideas looked like:

1. A stealth action game about a gnome stealing penises (part of internet folklore, haha).
2. A game about an isekai protagonist reincarnated as a tiny creature.
3. A horror game where you need to appease a little house spirit living in the hero’s house. The main feature would be a second-person camera (from the house spirit’s perspective). But I quickly realized it would be hard to make this game genuinely scary.
4. A game where dwarves break into a wizard’s house and start digging right in the apartment.

None of these ideas really grabbed me, but after combining the best elements from all of them, I ended up with what I have now. Since I’m not much of a 3D artist or animator, I also had to work within the limits of the assets I had available. Here was the idea:

The main character accidentally signs a micro-contract, and micro-businessmen invade his home and start taking his belongings. However, there was still the issue of defining victory and defeat. What was the player supposed to do beyond just retrieving their things? So, Saturday was entirely spent thinking about the core idea.

On Sunday, I finally started working on the core mechanics. As it often happens with Unreal Engine, you spend more time tweaking settings and trying to optimize performance than actually working on gameplay, haha. The whole day was spent setting up AI for the gnomes and trying to add IK so they would amusingly raise their hands when carrying objects (sure, I could have just done a simple animation, but why do that?!).

I left the most exciting part—retrieving items and the main character’s “work” mechanic—for Monday. Initially, I wanted the player to constantly focus on the computer while tiny businessmen would slowly steal his belongings when he wasn’t looking. The businessmen wouldn’t steal while you’re watching them, but the boss on the Zoom call would constantly demand your attention.

However, time was running out, and I still hadn’t worked out the win/loss conditions. Then it hit me: the tiny businessmen are collectors! And the main character is a debtor who took out a micro-loan (a loan for a small sum with huge interest rates). This MICRO-loan fit the jam’s theme “Tiny Creatures” perfectly. It’s just a small loan, but the consequences are enormous—tiny businessmen invade the hero’s life like an army of mini-collectors and start taking everything they can. To pay off the debt, the hero has to complete tasks on his computer. He’s living in a tiny windowless apartment because he’s hiding from the “micro” collectors. It all came together!

The thing I liked the most was the computer mechanic. It was my first time implementing text input, and it was really fun. I wanted to add more absurd tasks, but time was running short, so I had to stick with similar ones, though I did try to make them as varied as possible.

The sounds and effects, as usual, were added at the last minute, which is why they feel a bit rough. Sorry about that!

In the end, I’m very happy with how it turned out. Big thanks to everyone participating in Ludum Dare! It’s always a blast with you!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/smol-biznass