![\"FromBelow-title\"](\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/FromBelow-title.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom Below\u2019s Ludum Dare entry page<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I was really pulling for Deep Space as a topic, and I should be working on Cloudbase Prime<\/a>, so I almost sat out for LD29. My wife sounded disappointed, though. I told her I was thinking of a kraken game once the topic came up and she was all for it.\u00a0So I cracked open Unity and Blender and got to it. I pretty much just<\/em> made some bitchin\u2019 tentacles<\/a> on the first night.\u00a0They\u2019re a line renderer<\/a> that I made render some bezier curves<\/a> from bone to bone, using every second bone as a middle curve target for its neighbors. Seemed like a sweet idea! But then every other joint ended up having an ugly non-smooth edge. I tried averaging out the positions after switching which bones I used as the curve target. That just undid my curve\u00a0work, which was sadly obvious in retrospect :P. So I just rendered those \u201coverlap\u201d corners twice instead of averaging them and got the cool stripy\/jointed look in the game today!<\/p>\n Game jams get wonderful when something goes wrong and I can just say \u201cfuck it, I\u2019m featuring it!\u201d This was one of those times.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The main image I had in my head when imagining a kraken game was descending into the depths, dark where nothing else could see you, and coming out to strike. I never did get those stealth elements into the game (most of your enemies are submarines; it wouldn\u2019t have made much sense for them to care about light any way), but I got the darkness and that feeling of depth it added to the game.<\/p>\n I did this by changing the camera\u2019s fog color as your character\u2019s\u00a0depth changed, and also attaching a shton of colored, mostly transparent planes to the top\/bottom of the player, so that looking up and down always looked brighter\/darker, regardless of the current background\/fog color. I then added a water ceiling to the game and spent enough time staring at the screen afterward to go and make four separate idle animations that each tentacle independently cycles through at random, at different intervals for each so that they don\u2019t synchronize with each other incidentally too often. That made me feel much, much more like a kraken. <\/strong>That\u2019s when I realized I needed separate controls for each tentacle. It\u2019d be silly and just feel wrong<\/em> to have these nice writhing tentacles and only use one or two of them! A huge goal for me in this LD was to \u201cfinish\u201d my game before going to sleep at the end of day 1 (Saturday). I totally failed at that goal, but aiming for it made a huge difference in terms of focus and drive. I at least had my central game mechanic done before going to bed: being able to attack, grab, and throw enemies and hapless whales<\/a>. I rewarded my grand progress with an early morning shower, made the music while poking at GarageBand on my couch until 4:40am, and passed out on the couch.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I was happy with my progress the night before, but\u00a0waking up at 6:20am guaranteed I felt like total shit. Food, coffee, sunlight, and showing my wife what I\u2019d worked on the night before got me going again. A big feature of the game is that you can hold down a key to look toward the nearest enemy. This helps the goal of eliminating every enemy in a given wave be less frustrating, and also makes you feel more like you\u2019re a hunter that can actually sense its prey. Moving the camera while the player is also mouse-looking it is a problem I got stumped on last week\u00a0for Cloudbase Prime. The game jam approach of \u201cnope, screw that idea, that\u2019ll take more than half an hour to try,\u201d applied\u00a0a few\u00a0times solved the issue in a jiffy. Homing missiles (uh, torpedoes, I guess\u2026) were straightforward enough, and after that, subs were up and running shortly, reusing the wandering logic I added for the whale with some extra \u201cnever ever fly off the map pretty please because then the player will be stuck forever and hate me,\u201d logic added in.<\/p>\n The best bug ever:<\/p>\n too many missiles: animated gfycat here.<\/a><\/p>\n I did leave in a bug where enemies can keep firing missiles at you after they\u2019re defeated, and while they\u2019re grabbed by your tentacles. I tried<\/em> to fix it, but fortunately\u00a0decided it wasn\u2019t worth the time since\u00a0it\u00a0feels pretty badass to have the enemy firing at you in desperation before you chuck it at the dirt or a whale or its sub-bro-in-arms and watch it all explode. UI, health, copy\/pasting a bigger submarine, throwing it on top of the water so it\u2019s suddenly a boat, and making it shoot half a dozen slow, fat, super damaging missiles, and I was done! Barely, at the last possible moment. The rushed, clumsy, fantastic wrapping of the project\u00a0is my favorite part of every Ludum Dare.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This weekend was really, really nice in Arizona. We\u2019re the land of 100 degree Easters and it was firmly in the 70s. The weather was amazing<\/a>. I went out in the yard whenever I needed a break and watered plants\/stared into space with my wife and the dog while the wind howled. My wife\u2019s support was great. When trying to work a ridiculously long amount of time in a row, simple stupid things like not eating food or drinking coffee at the right time can make a huge difference. The meals! Salmon crepe, bleu cheese and steak sandwich, beef udon<\/a>\u2026 I was downright taken care of and I\u2019d feel silly if I didn\u2019t feel so damn lucky.<\/p>\n I met my folks for dinner in the middle of LD and showed them\u00a0a Vine<\/a> of the game\u2019s\u00a0tentacles. They told me the clouds looked great. There\u2026 are not clouds in this game. Perspective helps.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\nDay 0:<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDay 1:<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nDay 2:<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nFamily, breaks:<\/h2>\n