I really lucked out with the theme. Outside of the competition, I have been working on a strategy game on a globe. Originally in that game, tiles were layered and you dug up layers to craft into weapons/units. Unfortunately, units ended up putting holes everywhere in the map and unit movement became really confusing with tile height differentials, so I removed this feature from my game.

I was sad to let go this feature, but it was for the best. Then, Beneath the Surface is announced as the Ludum Dare theme and I get excited to revive this mechanic! The name comes from the original goal – a hunt for gems hidden beneath the surface. This would behave as sort of reverse Minesweeper. You would dig up a layer and depending on the layer beneath it, a transformation would happen. Transformations were bad because they would throw off your scent for the hidden gems. This approach didn’t seem like it would work out the more I thought about it. The gameplay would probably resemble randomly clicking on tiles. I also considered some sort of match-3 game with the addition of tile height dimension, but this didn’t seem like a fruitful path either.

At this point, I scrapped everything and making a roguelike on a globe.  Tile transformations were no more. You would hunt for resources and craft them into upgrades. The only problem was I had nine hours left. I may come back to this in the future, but I did not have time to complete this during the Jam.

So I went back to the puzzle game. I was inspired by Hexic. Maybe I could do a Match-3 game after all, just not in straight lines. I was going to do Hexic but require tiles to be at the same height for removal. Then I had a better idea – rings. The specifics came later, just in time for submission (I was a little late, actually). And hey, it didn’t turn out terribly, all things considered. Still, people are having trouble grasping the mechanics. The rules probably require a good rewrite for clarity. A tutorial would be a good idea if I decide to improve upon the game in the future. Animations would also be helpful. I experimented with popping tiles out before transformations, but my rendering system prevented this from working properly.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=31866