Ludum Dare 29 Postmortem – “[Work in Progress]”
I’m really glad with how my game turned out! I managed to think of a cool idea and scope it well enough to finish in time, and I’m quite proud of the result. Here’s some screenshots with explanations of game mechanics! There’s minor spoilers ahead (basically just a couple screenshots of the earlier puzzles), so be warned.
Basically, the premise is you’re sucked into your game (in a really cool cutscene), and you have to manipulate objects to get to the end and escape. To this end, you can rip the textures off objects, which modifies their properties, and reapply them to other objects. You use this to solve puzzles to make your way through your broken game (which is itself a work in progress, hence the title).
All this button is looking for is a model with the “orange” texture applied. That orange has the texture by default, but this nearby tree will work too.
This is an alternate (although not altogether exciting) solution to the first puzzle, which is primarily to introduce the player to the mechanics of putting oranges (yes, the fruit) on button. Why oranges? Well, because it’s a work in progress.
Make anvils float and hop along to the end!
This screenshot is the second puzzle. There’s actually a few different solutions; hopping along floating anvils like originally intended is incredibly hard and if you can do it, you are a god at this game.
Wireframes float and are solid; you can use them to build staircases.
The third puzzle involves a lot of objects just lying around; you have to pick them up, toss them, and remove their texture midair to create a makeshift staircase to scale a vertical wall. This is both easier and harder than it sounds; this is probably the most time-consuming puzzle.
Staircase as viewed from the top. This is a great accomplishment.
Getting to the top is a great feeling, though.
All these wireframes, in a sort of staircase. Where do they lead!?
What could this screenshot be about? Is that a door floating on its side? I guess you’ll have to play the game and find out!
All in all, the game is a light-hearted, humorous take on (what could happen beneath the surface of) game development. I’m glad I finally got to use this mechanic I thought up a while back, and I’m really happy it turned out so well. I wish we could have made more puzzles (or just more interesting ones), but unfortunately, as cool as the mechanic is, and as well as it works, it’s really hard to come up with puzzles for it. If I’ve learned one thing this weekend, it’s that I’m rubbish at puzzle design. Other features I included but never used were collision detection as a property of textures (applying certain “ghostly” textures to objects would cause them to become immaterial), and various types of event handlers I never really made full use of. And, of course, underneath all the textures, and the shaders, and the effects, it all comes down to wireframes. They’re what’re “beneath the surface” of all modern 3D video games, whether we notice it or not.
You can play it here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=22782 Let me know what you think!