As usual I’d thought I’d do my quick post jam break down of my game for LDjam 57.

Dawn of the First Day

I can't believe it but I didn't mind the theme for once! What is this?! Anyway I decided to go down my usual route of, guns, shops, collecting things and blasting up enemies. The first day went down doing the usually making a basic engine, with the general gameplay, a single enemy and all the gubbings I need to make it into something fully fleshed out.

I decided I didn't want to do anything with going into the depths, but instead of escaping them. I found there might be quite a few games about exploring them, mining or travelling down them so I thought I'd be cooler to do the opposite. Originally I planned it being an auto-scroller going up but I settled on the camera just panning up once you land on a solid ground. I had to figure out a quick and dirty way of respawning if you touched the bottom, which ended up turning out fine, (I hope.) The original plan was to make it a semi-rogue like with randomized levels, (you'd play five randomized levels from a seed of 10, however after the second day I knew I wouldn't have enough time to make 30 levels, so this concept was dropped.

Once the main core engine was finished I decided to add in all the weapons, upgrades and enemies. This took a few hours so I didn't go super overboard with them. I also didn't bother to sprite new looking guns for all the weapon types, that saved a few minutes too. Along with this, I kept the graphics simple and basic so they too wouldn't take an age to make. I decided to use the Master System palette because that console gets overlooked sometimes!

Anyway once all that was done I was finished for the first day and ended to bed!

Dawn of the Second Day

I woke up after about five hours of good decent sleep, refreshed I decided to make a pot of coffee and get back to it. I started working on the graphics for the levels. I had planned three distinct levels and I wanted to keep to this goal. This was the next couple of hours designing the tilesets, so they were ready to be used for when I get around to making the actual levels.

Once this was done, I started to make all the menu screens, pause screens, the shop, intro/outros. Basically anything that text/menus I decided to work on that because I can't stand doing this. It's better for me to do this when I'm awake and refreshed than when I'm super tired. After about a good four or so hours I had all this done! Although I say I hate making them, I did highly enjoy making my silly little intro for the game.

And with that, I had about a few hours left of the second day and just got down to crunching out levels. It was at this point I could see myself not making 30 different levels for my rogue like, so it ended up just making as much as I can and go with it. With that at the end of the second day I had the first stage fully completed with eight different stages and I went to bed.

Dawn of the Final Day

After about another five or six hours sleep, I awoke to what was the most easiest day of them all really. Nothing cool or interesting other than making levels. That was it. Just sat down and made levels and tested them. For the first time in my LDjam history I was ahead of schedule! With this by about 4 hours left I had made 22 levels and thought best to call it quits there and focus on two other important things, music and something extra to end the game on.

So with that, I spent about two to three hours making all the audio tracks for the game and about an hour on just a little extra for the end. (A small boss, nothing special just something other than "you escaped the final level".) I should of spent a little more time on the boss because it was a little underbaked, upped his health a little bit or did something but as a quick little add-on I can't complain.

And with that, I was done, finished with about 30 minutes to spare! I uploaded the game, recorded a video and it's done! Honestly this was such a lovely peaceful jam for me, I didn't panic, I didn't burn out and I just sat and had three days of fun making a silly little game that took inspiration from Cave Story, Momodora and Castle Hydra. That was my vibe with this game, and I just honestly enjoyed every second of it.

Fifteen coffees, two bars of chocolate, one bottle of store brand cola and a tube of pringles later and I made a game.

I've finally getting around to making this post and also playing all the wonderful games I've seen through this jam, it's great to be back after such an awful year!

Anyway I hope you enjoy Abyss Vaulter: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/abyss-vaulter

And if you can't play it, 'ere is a full playthrough of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GClSKA7fJ68

Much love - Joel!