It's finally over, LDJam39 is finished and I managed to get some sleep! So comes the breakdown of how the jam went and for this LDjam I made:

You can go and visit the Ludum Dare page 'ere

Or you can watch a full playthrough below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3oHUIWc4w

Dawn of the First Day

I ACTUALLY SLEPT! I usually awake at around (2AM my time) for the announcement of the theme but this time because I'm currently unwell I just slept through until the morning! Anyway once I found out the theme I basically just got to work. I did a little brainstorming within me 'ead while making the morning coffee and I decided because I'm unwell I'd take it easy hence why I decided to construct a run-n-gun. My favourite genre within the video game world

Mr VoltGun, or as I like to call him, George

Now to keep it within the theme I decided to add some sort of timer that continuously keeps ticking down and when you defeat enemies it recharges it slightly. With this basic concept I started to draft up some sprites which actually pretty much became the final product. I somewhat wanted a hybrid human/robot with plug ears because I have a huge love for designs with them. It was around this point I had the engine complete which a handful of weapons, a wall jump mechanic and a dash boost. I added in the main character sprite and it was around here when the game started to take shape. It was now when I could start adding in the enemies.

The Doombots, I used to draw these lil' fellas way back in my university days almost ten years ago.

With my hype for Sonic Mania growing day by day I decided to inject some Sonic-y style and gameplay to this run-n-gun. Considering you're always on a ticking timer I felt the speed and cartoony approach a wise one although I would of loved of to added in a 360-platform engine in but alas I just didn't have the time to do so. It was around this point when I was adding in the Doombots to include the low-high weapon/dash settings. I wished I could of explored this concept a bit more but yet again, time wasn't on my side but at least it's still there. Anyway it was approaching the end of the first day and I needed my sleep (again I'm unwell currently >.<) I had the engine all finished the next day was to start creating levels :D

Dawn of the Second Day

The Evil Unnamed Villain in his flying Doom Machine.

Again I actually had a fair amount of sleep so I was ready to take on the task of creating and spriting up some levels. I originally had five levels planned, the fifth one being a short final boss stage. These stages were; Fort Sapling, Neopolis, Turbulence, Temper Gadget and Final Fever however in the end only three got made. I also wanted each level to have four scenes with two bosses with the second pair of scenes having a different variation in the looks, ala Sonic3&Knuckles but this too sadly had to be scrapped. Given if I was well enough and could power through with hardly any sleep I could of possibly achieved this but I wasn't up to the task.

Mmm lovely end of stage boss fights, delicious

Anyway it was this day where I completed the first two stages and got at least half of the third stage sprited/tiled out. I didn't have any bosses at this point because I was mainly concentrating on the stages themselves and finishing off extra engine detail, (like destructible blocks, springs all that lovely jazz.) Anyway around 3am I finally got to bed.

Dawn of the Final Day

So colourful, much bounce

Sadly the final day was the least productive of the bunch, I was really hoping to get the fourth stage Turbulence created but I just didn't have the time of strength to it. It took me much longer than I expected to finish the final stage off, mainly due to being unwell. I thought also it wouldn't take me too long to finish off the end bosses but again I mis-judged and then they took about a couple extra hours longer. All this gave me only about a 45 minutes to compose all the music. I really wanted to add in some cutscenes and menu gubbings but I just ran out of time. I'm actually surprised looking back I've created what I did considering my health and the time I wasted sleeping.

Feeling hot hot hot.

Not to worry because I had an extremely fun jam, things somewhat came together and I had an amazing time creating this game. I hope people enjoy playing it! I'm going to take a couple of days rest and then get cracking on playing some lovely jammy games! Hope everyone had a fun jam!

-Joel

You can go and visit the Ludum Dare page 'ere