These are my thoughts about the game I made for the Ludum Dare 26 compo.  I will focus on what I feel was the most successful aspect of the game and the two issues I feel were the weakest.

I wanted to develop something I felt was complete and I accomplished this.

I have been preoccupied lately with the idea of games as complete creative works.  To help me in this thought process I have been toying around with parallels between a painting composed of component parts and a game composed of component parts.

I wanted all of the component parts of my game to support each other so that the sum of the parts was something greater.  I am pretty happy with the end result.  I feel the game has a completeness to it.

There were a number of components I felt had to be addressed sufficiently to fulfill the goal.  Visuals, mechanics, audio, story, and dealing with the medium itself.

For visuals I wanted to integrate the idea of minimalism both on a surface level, in terms of how the game appeared and on a subtler level dealing with the theme and the method of delivery, i.e. the screen and boundaries of the game representing ideas and techniques from minimalist painting.  My dealing with the delivery of the game involved blurring the game border both in terms of visuals and mechanics.  I also tried to break the game area up in various ways to compliment the visual style as well as attempt to change the players perception of the game area.

As for audio this is one of my weakest areas.  I dedicated enough time to work on music and audio that it helped tremendously to have sound that felt intentional.  However, I think significant improvements to the audio can be done.

In terms of story and mechanics, I wanted to tell a story in a minimal way.  I decided to have the keys(letters) on the keyboard that were used for input, WASD, to also be the characters in the game.  I felt this helped complement the game as a whole and effectively deal with the issue of explaining to the player how to play.

In terms of the medium, I tried to resolve this in the visuals, story and mechanics.  I already touched upon this above.  I will just add that one of my main goals was to tell a narrative through interactivity.

What I would improve.

I failed to develop and implement the audio I wanted.

I wanted audio tracks that played in layers and were played at random times based on a weighting system.  Two things prevented this from happening.  One is that I did not come up with a sufficient way to implement this in the time I had.  The other is that I have little experience creating music.  I am still looking for a music creation program that suits me well.  With time and research I hope to resolve these issues.

I sacrificed controls for narrative.

The other improvement I feel is necessary is in the controls.

Infernal says …

Apr 29, 2013 @ 6:38am

The only problem I have is the little slide to stop that occurs when you stop input. In the tight spots between two bars, this can end in frustration as you try to park a letter to wait.

Otherwise, very artistic and clean!

I chose to have each character move to the head of the group when the character’s key was pushed.  This was intended to convey the story of a familial group, each leading when it was necessary.  In order to do this I created an invisible object in the world that was the “hub” for the group.  When characters moved it was relative to the hub.  The result of this was a slide when input stopped and characters moving at odd angles at times; when the input and obstacles almost all existed as right angles.  These issues caused frustrating deaths.

While I still want to marry movement and mechanics to story, I feel I dropped the ball a bit by sacrificing gameplay, and control, for story.  While I don’t believe the choice is always one way, player frustration based off poor implementation is something I always wish to avoid, as for example a narrative can be ruined by control issues taking the player out of the game.

Overall I am happy. Ludum Dare is a wonderful event.  Thanks to everyone who has given feedback on my game.  

Thanks for reading.  You can find my Ludum Dare game here:  http://supersoul.co/files/Projects/LD26/LD26.html