In Ludum Dare #27 I manage to create a game called “10 Floors“. In this game, the player have to reach the goal in 10 sec by avoiding enemies on their way. Its a very simple and classic concept but this is not what I came up in the first place.

As soon as I learned about the theme, I also thought about building a game where you can finish every level within 10 seconds. Its funny that when I see the games, most games have the same approach but of course the execution is completely different. Some games have totally nailed the mechanic.

My first thoughts about the game was to build a game where the game world will change every 10 seconds. As a player you have to predict in advance what the state of the world will be in the next few seconds and based on that the player will make their moves. It was more of a puzzle game than just a runner. I had the world changing logic in but it didnt seemed that appealing from the gameplay point to view. I gave it some more thought but then I moved on as I couldn’t came up with anything that looked like it’ll be fun to play.

It was saturday afternoon and I had nothing. The chances of finishing the game were getting bleak so I went back to the drawing board without wasting any more time on my first idea. The clever decision to take at that time was to turn things around in a way that doesnt involve trashing all the work I have done so far. I reused my level assets, refactored a small section of code and quickly came up with this enemy avoidance idea. It looked fun and challenging at that time. I implement the first level within an hour and felt confident. After that its all non-stop work until I reached a point where the game is fully playable. I felt really relieved on sunday afternoon after seeing the “final” results. I then spent rest of the time polishing and fixing bugs. This is my LD #27 game making story.

What went right?

– No mysterious technical issues. Yayy!

– Able to change things at the last moment without breaking too much stuff.

What went wrong?

– Struggled while creating the puzzles, didnt quite like the implementation of what I had originally in my mind. Lost too much time on it.

– Didnt gave much thought to the mechanic itself. I felt like I was interpreting the theme (10 seconds) as a mechanic. But I guess those are two different things. This slowed me down a little in the beginning.

– Controls are not refined and smooth. I received some valid criticism on it. I wish I had spent more time on it.

Overall, I had a lot of fun making this game and learned couple of new things, especially about shaders and lighting. Shaders really changed the look and feel of anything whether its a 3D model or just a simple 2D line. Its magic.. lol.

Thanks Ludum Dare and I am definitely looking forward to the next Ludum Dare. In the meantime, I have other games to make :D. This shit never stops, eh.

Thanks everyone for playing the game. If you haven’t tried it yet, here “10 Floors“. After you beat the game, you can enter yourself to the online leaderboard. GET ON IT!!! 😀

Tags: 48 hours, compo, Ludum Dare, post-mortem