Before Jam

Before jam I had an idea of how I want my next game to be: something extremely content-based, with simple mechanics and controls. I recently noticed that generally games that have more content and actually show player their progress are better perceived than the ones with more complex mechanics, so I wanted to test it.

Theme

To be honest I didn't like the theme, I find general terms like "one room" or "simplicity" as less inspiring, I'd rather have very specific instructions and make something unexpected. "Cooking simulator" or Medieval RTS" might sound generic but they provide you something that you can easier diverge from. Right now the theme itself might sound interesting but it led to a lot of similar games. But that's just an opinion, based on my weak game designing skills, so don't worry about it too much.

First Day

I started by making really simple, low effort drawings, just to have my ideas wrote down.

My first idea was to make a game on small planet, but I don't like how low resolution pixel art looks when it is rotated. Now, when I think about it I see many ways to solve this, like square planet, platformer with normal gravity and very small planets used as platforms etc.

Second one were a world built of floating islands, this one was kinda cool. It'd probably require a lot of modular art like grass, plants and walls to quickly built an island. I don't really feel comfortable with doing big repetitive environments like these.

I choose the third one, taking place in one room (maybe basement). Also I wanted to make the environment somewhat dynamic, so things like falling ceiling, destroying furniture and some explosions or fire.

I really liked this idea, so I started programming prototype in Unity. After few hours I had walking, equipment and basic interactions.

MouseController.cs

Player.cs

Inventory.cs

As you can see, I used one script to process mouse input, and choose to which object send it. Next script defines player movement. I tried to keep it separated from others and easy to control from outside. It later proved itself useful when I needed to do the final cutscene. Inventory script is quite simple, each item has it own sprite and bool value that states whether it is unlocked or not.

Next I moved to Gimp (I made concept sketch in Krita). I started by drawing in black, white and transparent. After drawing player, sofa, placard with cat and chair I realised that I can't fit all of this on a small map (so I kind of failed the theme's challenge). I colored them, moved into Unity and went back to Krita to design the level. The placement of items stayed pretty much the same to the end.

Second Day

I started writing more specific scripts for each item and adding more graphics. I tried to keep the game palette simple with as few colors as possible. I didn't spend a lot of time on player animation since I felt like it isn't that important for this kind of game. If I had more time I'd probably draw animations for picking things up and maybe some kind of falling over, but I already felt stressed about the deadline.

It still lacked narration and the most important part - puzzle. So I started writing down my ideas for the things that player could do with items I've already drawn, of course I had to cut some of them down, since I couldn't draw a lot (it was already 6 hours before deadline). After having clear storyline for game I went back to programming. As you can guess there was a lot of bad, unclear or even unreadable code, but that's also a good thing about game jams - not everyday you can create horrible code and get away with it.

I made some sounds in bfxr in between, just to have any audio in game. The last thing I did was final cutscene, it was made using Unity IEnumerator. I'd make a simple cutscene system with waypoints, but I didn't have much time, so I just attempted to make it as clean and durable as possible (though I got one comment saying that it didn't work properly).

I'm really glad I didn't forgot to test my game in webGL, thanks to that exporting and packaging didn't cause any surprises.

Game

Side notes:

Text:

for writing down text I used the same prefab I used for my previous few entries, so it isn't ideal, making text autoscale was easier, but I dislike the way it looks.

Vanishing items:

On the last moment before building I realised that there is no feedback when you use an item, so I decided to just remove item after using. I agree that animation or pop up window would look much better.

What went well:

• the game presents challenge that is both exciting and rewarding
• controls are clear and easy
• it is readable, you can't really get lost and frustrated by it
• pixel art look nice and aesthetic
• I didn't have any problems with building and publishing game
• I finished most of the things I planned before deadline

What went badly:

• I started from programming and graphics and leaved the most important part (map and puzzles) to the end
• I didn't have time to make music
• not enough animations and only one cutscene
• I didn't experiment enough, I could do much more when it comes to graphics or gameplay

Link to the game

Plans: -update fixing text scaling and making items stay in inventory after using -post compo version with more levels more animations, items and better equipment system -new long time project: game with actual fable, big world and easy, relaxing gameplay

If you are interested in any of these follow me on gamejolt / itch.io / twitter / twitch I'll be publishing updates for post-compo version on Gamejolt, so if you're interested, click "Follow Game" here.

Thanks for reading.