{"author_link":"\/users\/loveapplegames","author_name":"loveapplegames","author_uid":"loveapplegames","comments":[],"epoch":1494803569,"event":"LD38","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":31118,"likes":5,"metadata":{"p_key":"93541","p_author":"loveapplegames","p_authorkey":"1006791","p_urlkey":"306459","p_title":"Scaleshifter postmortem","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD38","p_time":"1494803569","p_likes":"5","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1006791","us_name":"loveapplegames","us_username":"loveapplegames","event_start":"1492732800","event_key":"69","event_name":"LD 38"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD38","removed_author":false},"_superparent":9405,"_trust":13,"author":6791,"body":"Loveapple Games proudly present our entry, Scaleshifter.  In this game the goal is to collect DNA to evolve increasingly better scaleshifter abilities, enabling you to zoom deeper and deeper into the natural world.  \n\n![cap5-grab5.gif](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452e.gif)\n\n# [>>> Play the game here <<<](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/38\/scaleshifter)\n\n### Day 1\n\nThe first day was mostly spent brainstorming.  That includes inspirational activities, like the consumption of Bratwurst in the Saturday market.\n\n![bratwurst-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452c.jpg)\n\nOne of the first things that came to mind is to do something with zooming and change of scale. It appears almost no-one in LD was doing that, so that seemed really interesting.  The scale change would have to be more than a gimmick though, and form a central part of the game mechanic. There had to be a reason for the player to keep shifting scale.\n\nWe thought up a lot of crazy stuff, such as zooming into a maze shaped like a [Hilbert curve](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hilbert_curve), climbing into a fractal tree, going into the human body, or something like [Katamari Damacy](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Katamari_Damacy).\n\n### Day 2\n\nThe goal in the second day is to have a first prototype running, and start on the sound effects. We settled on shoot\/pick up game mechanics that involve zooming: zoom in to collect items, zoom out to navigate and shoot enemies.\n\nOne inspiration that got us started on the visuals was a \"zoom effect\" shader we found on [Shadertoy](http:\/\/www.shadertoy.com).  We spent a little too much time on making the WebGL shader zoom exactly in sync with the sprites.  The shader code was bad and required a complete rewrite.  Shader code can be quite a b*tch to get right. But the day ended with the zoom visuals working!\n\nWe also did the first batch of sounds. To make the audio sound more natural, we use multiple almost identical samples for each sound effect.  Sadly we couldn't use LMMS this time, so no music. We did not get it to work on our PC, and on the tablet PC the buttons and text were too small.\n\n### Day 3\n\nOn the third day the whole game still needed to be programmed, but this was fairly straightforward. One challenge was efficiency: the number of sprites grows exponentially with the zoom level, so there were thousands of moving objects, even though only a fraction of them were visible at any time. We had to optimize the game engine some, though it needs more optimization still.\n\nWe already had some sounds so we quickly got sound in the game.  Meanwhile we did three more batches of sound effects to improve and add to the sound.\n\n### Sound effects\n\nSounds were mainly vocalisations or involved hitting things around the house with various objects. Failed attempts at enemy death splat sounds included dropping ziplock bags of water into the bath and hitting cushions with wooden spoons. A long bout of recording screams got me worried that the neighbours would call the police \u2013 but that didn\u2019t happen. That worries us too...\n\nWe also sourced some sounds from JFXR. All audio was mutilated (sorry, post-processed) personally by us using Audacity.\n\nWe used a creaky old smartphone for audio recording. For eating food sounds we used poor man\u2019s apples (carrots).\n\n![carrots-fresh-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452a.jpg)\n\nBut the carrots went downhill a bit by the time the ratings system was working.\n\n![carrots-wilted-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452b.jpg)\n\nCan you spot the sound made by hitting this radiator with this cat litter scoop?  You might also hear a kind of faint cello sound in the background, with doppler effect.  As far as we can tell, that was a passing car. Looks like the house is just a massive sound box.\n\n![radiator-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452d.jpg)\n\n\nHave fun and let us know what you think!\n\n","comments":1,"comments-timestamp":"2017-05-15T03:34:47Z","created":"2017-05-14T16:51:54Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":31118,"love":5,"love-timestamp":"2017-05-15T02:36:25Z","meta":[],"modified":"2017-05-15T03:34:47Z","name":"Scaleshifter postmortem","node-timestamp":"2017-05-14T23:12:49Z","parent":21841,"parents":[1,5,9,9405,21841],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/38\/scaleshifter\/scaleshifter-postmortem","published":"2017-05-14T23:12:49Z","scope":"public","slug":"scaleshifter-postmortem","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":83147},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"31118","n_urlkey":"306459","n_parent":"21841","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/38\/scaleshifter\/scaleshifter-postmortem","n_slug":"scaleshifter-postmortem","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"6791","n_created":"1494780714","n_modified":"1494819287","n_version":"83147","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/38\/scaleshifter\/scaleshifter-postmortem","text":"Loveapple Games proudly present our entry, Scaleshifter.  In this game the goal is to collect DNA to evolve increasingly better scaleshifter abilities, enabling you to zoom deeper and deeper into the natural world.  \n\n![cap5-grab5.gif](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452e.gif)\n\n# [>>> Play the game here <<<](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/38\/scaleshifter)\n\n### Day 1\n\nThe first day was mostly spent brainstorming.  That includes inspirational activities, like the consumption of Bratwurst in the Saturday market.\n\n![bratwurst-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452c.jpg)\n\nOne of the first things that came to mind is to do something with zooming and change of scale. It appears almost no-one in LD was doing that, so that seemed really interesting.  The scale change would have to be more than a gimmick though, and form a central part of the game mechanic. There had to be a reason for the player to keep shifting scale.\n\nWe thought up a lot of crazy stuff, such as zooming into a maze shaped like a [Hilbert curve](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hilbert_curve), climbing into a fractal tree, going into the human body, or something like [Katamari Damacy](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Katamari_Damacy).\n\n### Day 2\n\nThe goal in the second day is to have a first prototype running, and start on the sound effects. We settled on shoot\/pick up game mechanics that involve zooming: zoom in to collect items, zoom out to navigate and shoot enemies.\n\nOne inspiration that got us started on the visuals was a \"zoom effect\" shader we found on [Shadertoy](http:\/\/www.shadertoy.com).  We spent a little too much time on making the WebGL shader zoom exactly in sync with the sprites.  The shader code was bad and required a complete rewrite.  Shader code can be quite a b*tch to get right. But the day ended with the zoom visuals working!\n\nWe also did the first batch of sounds. To make the audio sound more natural, we use multiple almost identical samples for each sound effect.  Sadly we couldn't use LMMS this time, so no music. We did not get it to work on our PC, and on the tablet PC the buttons and text were too small.\n\n### Day 3\n\nOn the third day the whole game still needed to be programmed, but this was fairly straightforward. One challenge was efficiency: the number of sprites grows exponentially with the zoom level, so there were thousands of moving objects, even though only a fraction of them were visible at any time. We had to optimize the game engine some, though it needs more optimization still.\n\nWe already had some sounds so we quickly got sound in the game.  Meanwhile we did three more batches of sound effects to improve and add to the sound.\n\n### Sound effects\n\nSounds were mainly vocalisations or involved hitting things around the house with various objects. Failed attempts at enemy death splat sounds included dropping ziplock bags of water into the bath and hitting cushions with wooden spoons. A long bout of recording screams got me worried that the neighbours would call the police \u2013 but that didn\u2019t happen. That worries us too...\n\nWe also sourced some sounds from JFXR. All audio was mutilated (sorry, post-processed) personally by us using Audacity.\n\nWe used a creaky old smartphone for audio recording. For eating food sounds we used poor man\u2019s apples (carrots).\n\n![carrots-fresh-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452a.jpg)\n\nBut the carrots went downhill a bit by the time the ratings system was working.\n\n![carrots-wilted-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452b.jpg)\n\nCan you spot the sound made by hitting this radiator with this cat litter scoop?  You might also hear a kind of faint cello sound in the background, with doppler effect.  As far as we can tell, that was a passing car. Looks like the house is just a massive sound box.\n\n![radiator-sm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/78a\/1\/z\/452d.jpg)\n\n\nHave fun and let us know what you think!\n\n","title":"Scaleshifter postmortem","wayback_source":[]}