Well Ludum Dare's 48 hours have passed and we've entered the judging period. I have to say the feedback has been great and I really appreciate it all.

What is recharged?

Recharged is a game where you play as a robot who is constantly running low on power. He needs your help collecting batteries to keep his fuel up so he can keep chugging along!

Along the way you’ll be able to pick up one of three power-ups. The solar panel which allows you to periodically generate your own power, the gas can which increases your maximum fuel capacity, and the efficiency drive which decreases the rate you lose fuel.

Tools used

The game was written in Java with the LibGDX framework. I planned to use IntelliJ as my IDE but it was acting up so I used Android Studio instead (they're basically the same IDE anyways). The art was created using both Photoshop for menu screens and Piskel for the sprites. Finally the music and sounds were created using Ableton Live and Audacity.

What went right?

The idea

I was planning to spend upwards to an hour after the theme was announced to figure out an idea but luckily I didn't need that. It took around 15-20 minutes to come up with an idea that I found interesting and was able to spend more of the time actually programming and less about having to brainstorm ideas. I also was able to ensure my scope was small and didn't bite off more than I could chew meaning I could have a completed game by the end of the 48 hours.

Responsive controls

The controls feel very responsive and solid. I was able to get the controls down rather quickly in the initial prototype which was good because it meant I didn't have to deal with polishing up messy controls later. In my opinion it's kind of rigid with only 4 directional movement and it'd be more fluid with omni-directional movement but I'm very satisified with the controls.

The art

This may sound surprising seeing as the graphics aren't anything to write home about and they're rather simplistic but I'm still proud of them. I'm definitely not an artist so the fact I got some good looking sprites was better than I was hoping for. I'm especially proud of the battery and gas can sprites.

The sounds

Almost every review so far has acknowledged the sound effects for the game are very well done. Originally I was planning for a more chiptune sound design but it was simply annoying to listen to so I later decided against it and I'm rather proud of it. The sounds weren't too difficult to make (the battery sounds are just little bell jingles and the music is a simple 4 bar loop) but they definitely make the game better and so I'm rather proud of that. The sort of last minute robot dialogue also adds a bit of character to the game which is nice.

What could have been better?

The difficulty

I've received some feedback saying the game is too simple which I can agree with. All that you can do is walk around collecting batteries and there isn't much challenge. This means that when the player loses they don't feel they lost because they handled a situation wrong, but because there was nothing they could do.

The battery spawns

Right now the batteries just spawn randomly after a certain amount of time (starting at once per second and moving to once every 3.5 seconds). I've noticed that even with all 3 power-ups after around 2 minutes the batteries spawn too infrequently that you just auto-lose (haven't heard of anyone reaching more than that yet). This should be fixed so that a player can last more than 2 minutes without autolosing.

The power-ups

Not gonna lie, the power-ups were a last minute idea I had on Saturday night and I didn't have much time to think that through or balance them. First off the actual power ups themselves (besides the solar panel) don't make much sense. How does a gas can increase the fuel capacity of a robot that uses batteries and how does a microchip increase it's fuel efficiency? The power ups themselves don't really make a noticeable impact. The gas can is completely useless, the solar panel's generation is so little it's irrelevant and the efficiency drive doesn't increase your efficiency enough to be noticeable. Earlier on they were stronger which I nerfed but I ended up nerfing them too hard. If I had more time I definitely would have balanced them better.

The player sprite

The player sprite was rushed with like 20 minutes left in the compo and looks like garbage.

Closing Remarks

Despite this being my first Ludum Dare and the second game I ever created I feel like I put out a solid game. My last game was a buggy piece of crap that took 3 months to make whereas this game is relatively good despite being made in only 48 hours. There are many things I'd improve on:

• Add some type of enemy or something that adds difficulty to make it more engaging to the player.
• Change the controls to be omni-directional and possibly add controller support.
• Make the sprites better and add animation
• Change how the batteries spawn so they spawn more common and not just completely random locations.
• Make the power-ups more relevant and not feeling completely useless.

All in all I'm rather proud of myself and this game. If you have yet to try out Recharged you can play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/recharged