Entry:

After a few days and some honnest feedack from the community on ludumdare.com, twitch and others, I’d like to draw the conclusions of my very first game jam. I decided to enter alone, in the compo competition using Game Maker witch i’m starting to love and hate at the same time. I’ve been eyeing Unity for some time but it’s still a bit unclear for me.

The theme was pretty inspiring to me as it meant basically, “you can make a very simple game that takes place only on one screen”. I immediately thought about an “auto-maze” that can generate an infinity of mazes using a system of pillars that go up and down. A MAZE inc. was born! In my head… Then I had to go to sleep.

Process :

– First thing to do was that pillar system, as it was the core idea of my game, the rest would go by itself (…)

I drew my pillars directly in the paint-like editor inside Game Maker as it was supposed to be temporary, the first idea was to go with a metallic look within the hole game. And once i finally found a good way to control them i realized the hardest was to come. I wanted to create a random maze with a start, an end, some “monsters”, weapons (like bombs) and coins. The game would feel like a random pacman mixed with some bomberman. I felt exited.

– I knew the auto-maze system was ambitious but once it was done, the rest was easy it it would kind of spare me the level design phase.

I researched a lot on auto generated mazes and dungeons on GM. I haven’t found any working source that could inspire me. But what I should have seen was that most of them were pretty complicated. I spend so much time on researching and experimenting, I could have programmed an entire other game during that time! Finally I abandoned that system, I knew I didn’t have the time to make it work even if I was starting to get some results. At this point, I almost abandon the jam, then I had a game saving idead!

– I would abandon the auto-maze system and recycle the controller system so the pillars can be controllable by myself.

But I still wanted my game to take place in one single room, as it was the theme and the hole reason to my pillar system. I started to create controllers designed to move the pillars in that single room as i wanted. But it turned out to be a horrible lost of time. It was too much complicated and abstract. With much more time it would have worked but still I had to construct the different combinations in an other room, so i could see the end result. That’s when it strucked me.

– I could just construct different rooms and the player couldn’t really feel teleported as long as these rooms look the same and I have a good transition system.

I didn’t have much time left but it worked pretty good and the effect was very efficient! I felt relieved, this was a good frame for a real game. I started to create a few levels, added a very simple controllable character and an advanced AI system that can find you no matter how difficult is the maze, like i knew how to make. I made all the game stripes and created a music from a huge bank of samples (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZhwRobYmps). It seem a like a big step (and it is) but it’s really not the most time consuming phase, I didn’t get stuck one second and I’m proud of how fast I came through that process. Untill…

– I went to the restaurant with my familly!

It seemed like a good idea at first. I would rest and eat well before the final straight. See, I live in Lyon and we have a traditional festival the weekend of December 8, “La Fête des Lumières”. Basically there are great illuminations all around the city and many people from everywhere come to see them. The streets are crowded and the restaurants too. And my family and friends choose a restaurant in one of the most touristic places. I didn’t know where it was, I lost time finding it, plus my family couldn’t enter without me (given the ton of people they don’t allow partial groups). And you know, it takes some time to eat in a real restaurant. Oh, and the subway was crowded too, I had to walk.

– Finish Express.

With my easy built-in level designer, I felt confident that I could wrap up the game easily. But the restaurant issues made me loose so much time that I had to rush the end! Fortunatly, we had one our to submit the game after the ending time. If I learnt anything it’s that you should always schedule ahead and take this matter seriously. I eventually compacted a roughtly finnished game just a few seconds before the gong. But because I fifn’t have time to test it before I ship it, there was a horrible bug! A never ending loop of explosion right on the player. The game was unplayable. It took a few minutes to fix that bug and a couple of others. I consider my game standout but then again with the restaurant episode and my late start, I can say that A MAZE inc. was made in less than 48 hours.

End result:

A MAZE inc. is not exactly what I wanted it to be. I was stubborn to make an auto-generated maze but I’m not a programmer. I lost time in the process and gained nothing. I’m glad that I found a compromise but I didn’t have the time to use it’s potential to the fullest. People who played my game all loved the transition system, and the overall presentation of the game but found it not exciting enough. Some said it was too slow, some said repetitive, some were bored by the enemies… All in all, I didn’t spend enough time on the game system, too much time on the superficial. I’m still proud of my entry and i feel that with a few tweaks and addons, it’s a good recipe for a nice little indy game. Bigger mazes, more different enemies and obstacles, and a basic enigma system with boxes and switches, that’s what I’d do to improuve that game. Most of Compo entries are pretty basic or not finished compared to it, so I think it’s not too bad for a first game jam 😉 See you next year!

If you want to test it, rate it and add your feedback, the game is still as it was on the first day:

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=46758