Play IRMCO Space Miners

This was my first Ludum Dare and the first game I’ve completed since 1997. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited to give it a try. After a nice birthday dinner with my wife and kids (my birthday was Friday), I settled into my office to get started. I’ve been playing around in Unity lately, so I upgraded to the beta 4.6, opened it up and waited for the theme to be announced.

I’ve been out of the game development loop for quite some time, so I wasn’t familiar with Ludum Dare until earlier this year. I didn’t participate in April’s event, but I watched some live streams and found a fun simulation game written by Quill18 called, suitably enough, Drill18: The Mars Project. I love games like this and thought it was a lot of fun. As I was playing it back in April, I though, “How cool would it be to have a game where you could travel to different planets to mine for various resources?” I thought about it for a short time and mentally filed it as an idea to flesh out later.

When the theme “Connected Worlds” was announced, this idea came right back to mind, and I felt it was perfectly suited for this competition. I thought of a couple other ideas, but I almost immediately made up my mind to go with the space mining idea. It was the game I wanted to make and this was the time to build a prototype to see if it will work as a game.

 


 
My goal for Friday night was to get a solar system in place. I started by getting the planets to orbit around the sun and the planets spinning on their own axis. Then I worked on interacting with the solar system, getting the camera moving via the mouse with zooming and panning. Once I had a system in place where I could randomly generate planets of various sizes and orbits and I could move it around and interact with it, I called it a night around 2 am. Unfortunately, 2 hours later I was still wide awake, so I decided to stop wasting time and got back to work.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. I worked until around noon Saturday before I was finally able to get some sleep. I woke up around 6:30 pm and worked all the way up until submission time. My idea was probably pretty ambitious for a 48 hour competition, but I managed to get it complete and add some polish. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with how it turned out. While I was developing it, I kept thinking “I wonder if this is going to be any fun?” When I was finally at the point where all the pieces were together and got a chance to actually play a game, I was impressed. It was actually a lot of fun. I didn’t have quite enough time to balance everything (I still haven’t tried playing through at “Brutal” difficulty yet), but a normal game plays through pretty well and a normal game with 9 planets should be beatable in under 10 minutes.

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So What Went Right?

Upgrading to Unity 4.6 was a great idea. The upgraded UI controls are amazing. They are so simple to use compared to the old system. It made putting together the interface a breeze, and considering how many different windows IRMCO has, this was key. Although when I did the first web build and saw the text “This was built by a beta version, it will only work on your computer.” I about had a heart attack. Fortunately though, it turned out not to be an issue.

Having an idea of the completed game before starting. Since I had already been sorta designing this game in my head for the past few months, I knew pretty much how I wanted it to work. I had a pretty good idea how the game would play, from beginning to end. It kept me motivated and I knew exactly what needed done every step of the way.

Iterations. I had a playable game Saturday night. By then, I had spent maybe 15 minutes on graphics and no time on sound. I think getting a playable version of the game as soon as possible is key. Once I had a working game, I began to polish it. I made nicer graphics. I added sounds. I added features that made the game more enjoyable. Every time I’d play through the game, I’d think of something else that would improve gameplay and I added it. The end result feels like a finished game.

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So What Went Wrong?

Sleep. I think if I participate again, I will definitely not work right up until the moment I want to go to sleep. I simply cannot work that way. My brain needs some unwinding time and not getting that kept me awake. While only sleeping 6 of the 48 hours gave me the time necessary to polish the game, it’s been hard on my body. I will do whatever it takes to make sure I get good nights sleep next time.

Not fully testing my tools before starting. I didn’t even try the new UI tools in Unity 4.6 until it was time to add the interface to the game. Fortunately, they turned out to be extremely simple for the most part, but it could have been a disaster. The issue with the web build warning message made my heart sink. My first thought was that I’d have to revert to an older version and port all the interface to the old method, but that wouldn’t have been practical. I’m fortunate that it turned out to not be a problem, but it could have been a big one.

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If you haven’t already, please check out my game: IRMCO Space Miners. Feel free to rate the game and leave me some constructive criticism.

In conclusion, I’m glad that I participated and I’m proud of the game I created. I commend everyone who participated, as this is certainly not an easy thing to do. For those of you who completed games, no matter how polished they are, congratulations. Get some rest. You deserve it.