Now with better contrast!

By: Derek Mastromonaco & co.

Click HERE to play Nut Commander : Squirrels In Fear Ludum Dare entry.

Although I would really prefer it if you only did that for sanctity of the jam. If you wish to be entertained, you really should

Play the new release of Nut Commander!

Particle effects and sounds on explosions… it’s almost like you can tell something is happening now :P

POST MORTEM

I did not learn about the competition until about 12 hours before the theme announcement, and spent some time talking to a few people who expressed some interest. We watched the themes closely (in case they moved suddenly), and silently rooted against ’10 Seconds’ the entire day. I had never participated in a game compo or jam before, and was excited about the possibility… especially for ‘Death Is Good’… but alas. One of my teammates had, and has much more knowledge than I overall about how these go, but unfortunately he was busy for a lot of the weekend.

Anyway, after the theme was announced we spent some time moaning, and finally I roughed out a way to use preplanned actions to fit the 10 second theme. And then we slapped squirrels and nuts and physics on it. Shout out to Clockwork Dragons. You are the game I wish I had thought of. ^^ As it is, we got something vaguely Hungry Hungry Hippos + Robo Rally, I think.

Is it even a game if you can’t compete? Jk, Jk!

What went right:

I was very strict with my coding practices during the time allowed because I knew I would have limited time to revisit or re-figure out anything. This turned out to be very astute. In a few cases I was able to get away with just flagging states off multiple times in cases where I wasn’t sure why or when something wasn’t resetting, and the form of my code was able to support this. Over-engineering states for simple cases is invaluable when you just need things to work (however sketchy that sounds…)

What went wrong:

Let’s be brutally honest, I did not manage to publish a game in the deadline. It was a fancy-ish tech demo at best. Too much time was spent on polish without the entire framework in place. User feedback for crucial game actions like scoring points ended up being cut for unnecessary glam.  I would argue that any game that included the options to click “Start” and be told “Hey, You’re done now” was a better game than mine. This was a terrible oversight.

Other than that, the usual stuff went wrong. No one on the team had very much free time (except myself). Sleep caused silly mistakes. I spent 45 minutes looking through someone’s code and changing stuff to try to find a logic bug that could have been solved by initializing the variable. Artistic decisions were made by a programmer (me). Far too much Red Bull was consumed.

New regular gameplay UI.

Post Ludum Dare Release

However, just getting posted what I was able to was immensely rewarding. The sense of achievement, and the feedback from the people commenting on NC was motivating enough for me to fix all these silly mistakes and present you with a brand new, polished gameplay experience! (Ok, there’s still bugs in there. But you can start and end now…)

New Features Implemented:

• Particle effects and sound effects for all attacks
• Start screen with level select and help page to learn how to play
• 8 levels, each with their own High Score table
• Vastly improved color scheme
• Large and move visible squirrel, who cannot get lost (probably)
• Improved and polished physics on all attacks and environment
• Saved High Scores! For Winning Purposes!

In game instructions…

Play the new release of Nut Commander!

In conclusion, Ludum Dare was absolutely worth it, and I have loved every minute of it. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen and participated!

(Afterthought : It wasn’t until late Saturday that we figured out the interpretation we liked best : “Not 10 Seconds!”. As in, our reaction to the theme; and also as in, let’s say, a game where finishing in 10 seconds makes you lose. Or whatever :P)