Play “Under ytan”!

I woke up a couple of hours ago, it’s now almost 10pm. This Ludum Dare was amazing for me, though it was a very different experience.

I live in Shanghai until July, Twitter, Youtube and many more sites are blocked here, Twitch doesn’t work like it should.. I wish I could have livestreamed development, I also wish I could have tweeted with people, I also wish I could watch all the trailers for games that people create, but I can’t.

The game I made is called “Under ytan” which means “Beneath the surface” in Swedish. It’s a platformer where you can dive under the surface of the ground, making it looks like water, there you can walk upsidedown, making it a weird mix of platforming and using momentum from diving up and down to reach higher jumps or deeper depths.

Good things:
I am very pleased with how the game looks. When you dive there is a splash and bubbles following you, making it actually look like you’re diving.
The controls feel natural, something I usually have a hard time achieving. about halfway through the competition some friends tried playing the game, I noticed how all of them tried pressing ‘up’ to go up faster from the water, so I added that control. Small touches like that give a lot to the feeling of the game.
The sounds are pretty nice I think, I recorded most of them doing sounds with my mouth!
Since making “blomster” I’ve learnt to create levels as you make the game, since it ramps the difficulty along with your own skill in the game, I think this worked out pretty good in “Under ytan”.

Bad things:
Doing the competition in a dorm made me take a lot more breaks than I usually do, had friends visiting me throughout. Not really a bad thing, but I sure missed a few hours where I could have worked on the game!
With 3 hours left, I tried making music, and it was a mess, I ended up using a super simple string of notes playing softly in the background, I had a hard time fitting music with the game..
With 1 hour left I realized I didn’t have an ending, and quickly made what is now the last level, I had a cool scenario in my head which I kindof succeeded in creating, but the end of the game feels somewhat like an anticlimax!

Hope you like the game, I will try to rate as many games as I can, but my internet connection is sooo slow it usually takes a very long time to download something, so I may not have time to rate as much as I would like to! Sorry!