Way back in LD47, as we were making Express Without Remorse, our first game, @ruruie made a request: could we have a beam?
We could not. We had no idea what we were doing, we barely (but successfully) made a game at all. Multiple shot types were right out.
Two years ago as we were making Witch Contractor, our fifth game, @ruruie made a request: could we have a beam?
We could not. We had to build out complex map logic and multiple enemy types to create some depths for the players to plumb and that took all of our dev capacity. We had different bullet types but they all behaved the same. We couldn’t introduce a whole new way for enemies, or the player, to interact with one another.
Is it really a shmup, if you don’t have a beam? We had to say ‘yes’. We had to compromise. You don’t need a beam, we lied to ourselves.
It’s LD56. We are making a game. It’s a shooter. Ruruie doesn’t even have to request the beam. We both know about the beam. It hangs over us. It is the shadow, the creeping death, the cold laughter in the back of the mind. We build out bullets. Change how bullets work. Develop enemy types. But something is missing, something is always missing. We need to cut features. There’s no bombs, no background variation, no procedural infinity. We need to get an MVP out. We can’t have another disaster like LD54. But we can’t cut everything. We have to push to make the jam worth it, to develop our powers and beyond what we've made before.
Bare hours before deadline. We’re in panic feature-completion mode. It’s a shmup. It needs a boss. We make a boss. It has spread fire, circle fire, a hypervelocity orange, the standards. But. The boss is a witch. It’s a shmup with a witch boss in it.
The time has come, it's now or never. We need a beam.
It turns out the mechanical logic for a beam is very straightforward with the systems we already have. It’s just a bullet with a different hitbox and movement logic. But that’s not enough. You can’t have a beam if you don’t have the actual beam. With a bare 80 minutes to go I ask @ruruie: Can we have a beam?
(read bottom to top)
All we need is a rectangle with a rounded end and some gradient, right? Nothing too fancy, I've given our artist a tall order but it's doable if we keep it simple.
The beam produced is not a rectangle with a rounded end and a little colour gradient.
In the middle of final crunch time @ruruie produces not just a beam but a beam, a fully-featured piece of firepower with a complete charge and fire animation, more spectacular than any of our other bullets. In the last hour of the last day of the jam where we had to do it, the dream of long years becomes real.
Our game has a beam in it.
(play it here:)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/magical-girl-danmaku-dandelina
I created with other musicians from the jam a playlist of the music composed during the LD56.
So here is the link : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/meeptoss
