Even though i had a few set backs this ludum dare (power going out for a whole day, being forced to go to a family gathering with no computer… ) i actually managed to make 3 games! Unfortunate im not really satisfied with any of them so i wont be submitting them.
Its not that i don’t like the games or the ideas its just each game had its own problem:
Do to lost time i had to constantly take out features and make various changes to game direction so in the end i basically ended up with 3 totally different games.
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Game Idea one:
thanks to the power going out for a day i spent the entire day planning out a crazy epic story.
Game idea one was going to be a interactive puzzle strategy game where the players and characters world were connect(your time zone affected story/environment, the player had to make various decisions, etc…)
The first game i bit off more than i could chew and the game required a detailed story and environments, complete 3d models and animations, logic coding, various choices… in the end the game was pretty and detailed but lacked interesting game play(it was mostly just a point and click mystery).
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Game Idea Two:
For game idea two i decided to simplify characters models ,take out the story and make the game mission based around a single event, then i decided to take out ai and allow a second player to assist the main character with puzzles etc.
I would spend most of my time coding two player co-op logic puzzles, and various control logic.
while working on game idea two i actually had a pretty good pace and scheduled unfortunately i was forced to go to a family event which chomped 7 hours from my scheduled so i no longer had enough time to code all of the logic puzzles that i had to finish which made the second game a bit to short.in the end i was only able to make about 4 levels.
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Game Idea Three:
For game three i decided to remove story completely from game idea to and make it a co-op versus strategy game , using some of the logic that i had already coded, and then i tweaked a few of the assets i had made to make them more appropriate for the new game play style.
And you know what the third game was awesome. replay value was really high , the graphics were pretty and overall it had solid game play…but it doesn’t feel like it had anything to do with the theme.
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Overall
im sure that if i hadn’t lost so much valuable time i would have actually been able to add those last little tweaks to make the game/s good enough for submission.
After the power went out i should have followed my gut and made the game prototype using html and my ipad(the official game was going to be made using unity3d) that way i could get my ideas working and would have a more realistic idea of what was capable, instead of me just sitting around sketching out ides.
But in the end its not all that bad, now i have three awesome new games that i can expand on , ive learned alot about the tools i used ,and i learned more about my strengths and weaknesses this ludum dare.
)).
Nevertheless, we have had so much fun with Unity 4.6 and its beta-ness. UI is fantastic!
