For this LD compo, I figured that everyone would be doing farming games, so I thought I'd flip the genre on its head and tell the story from the perspective of the vegetables. I mixed it with a bit of cheesy 80s-style action movie character tropes, and ended up with a setting I had a lot of fun writing and recording things for. This post acts sort of as semi-promotion and also as a post-mortem even though results are a good couple of weeks away.
A few spoilers are mentioned here, so if you're interested please check the game out before reading on. The picture above is a link to the game page.
What is the game?
Revengetables is a 2D action game based around character-switching and quickly adapting to waves of enemies that approach from the sides of the screen.
What did I focus on?
I focused mainly on making sure that the game didn't get in its own way. I prioritised UI polish (even though the game doesn't really use UI that much), and I wanted distinct and recognisable visuals over something more "gritty" or sensible. I also spent a LOT of time on the sound design, the music, and the humour. The way that enemies flash when they get hit is a really nice bit of polish, and in fact subtly informs the player of the fact that tumbleweed is impervious (it doesn't flash).
What worked?
This is, without a doubt, my most sound-rich entry. It's the first one I've done that's featured extensive voice acting, and the SFX and music were also big highlights. I wanted to make sure that there weren't any glaring holes in the sound effects, and I used a neat trick for the music that I'm pretty proud of. The soundtrack consists of three distinct tracks, each in a completely different style (70s/80s style rock, smooth jazz, and electronic rave music), but with the same tempo and chord structure. All three are played simultaneously so that they line up exactly, but when you switch characters, the volume fades between them.
I also quite like the art style, although I would have liked to have added background details (such as clouds, buildings, other vegetables). What I did make, I'm quite happy with. It's a departure from my normal style, which is much more of a pixelated affair with zero blurring/smoothing.
The crown jewel of the game, however, is its humour. It is filled to the brim with cheesy one-liners, that I haven't received a single bad word about (so far). Each of the three main characters has five puns they choose from at random when they spawn in (plus some extra silliness during the tutorial), and the players love it. I am beyond proud of the jokes I put into this thing.
What didn't work, or needed more work?
I think the game would have worked better if it was, instead of a "beat all of the waves coming at you and get to the end" type thing, more of a "here's a big level with a bunch of enemies, go kill them for points" thing. Considering how the setting really makes you aware that you are being aggressive, you sure do spend a lot of time reacting instead of pushing towards enemies. I would have also liked to have included more varieties of enemies - currently there's only three (four if you include tumbleweed), although I will admit that the game is short enough that it doesn't really matter. It's more of something I would have to consider if I did go for the larger approach.
I also decided mid-way through that there would be no score tracking, which I think was a mistake. Even though players who beat the game will often have the exact same score as each other, people like seeing a number go up.
Final thoughts
I'm very proud of Revengetables. I don't personally think it's my best Ludum Dare game overall (that honour goes to my previous entry), but the individual components of it are really what I like about it. I feel that the UI, the sound, some of the visuals, and of course the jokes are among the best I've ever done. But with all that put aside, at the end of the day, it's just plain fun to play - I had an absolute blast making every part of it, and I think it shows.
I used AseSprite for most things and this year didn't really bother with references if I knew how the object looked like somewhat and that made the process a lot faster, in the past Ludum's I put too much time into research and that was quite the waste, in that time I could have done more animations that would have made the game world feel more alive - as all moving things do. I deemed animations generally more important due to that and started working on them earlier.
Though I did start drawing without using a pallet, which was a huge mistake since I had to recolor the drawings I made later on due to them not fitting together with each other and well had to do additional improvements to the basic sprites too.
