Spotlight Search! Deluxe
Spotlight Search: A game for the Ludum Dare 21 Jam by MiniTroll (age 9 ½) and PapaTroll (age 39 ¾) and made in short bursts over one day using Scratch & a Casiotone MT-70 keyboard. Scripting by PapaTroll and MiniTroll, art by MiniTroll, sound by MiniTroll.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/moomintroll/1988546
Developer diaries below!
MiniTroll’s Diary
When we were making the game we each had ideas. It was my idea for the game and the name and how to get the timing right so the characters come in on time. I also drew the door and helped with the sound effects. Papa Troll helped by explaining and doing the hard bits. The hardest bit was making the levels come on automatically. I made the level backgrounds I call them 1) sky 2) candy floss 3) volcano. It feels great to have made a game again! (To play them go to scratch program and share and search moomintroll)
PapaTroll’s Diary
This was our first ever Ludum Dare game. I had promised to make a game with Mini Troll during the summer, but we somehow never found the time – so this was a good chance to make good my promise! Mama Troll and Teeny Troll were off to visit Troll Family for the day, giving us a chance to get some development time without interruptions.
We had a leisurely start to the morning. Discussed the theme, Escape. Straight away MiniTroll suggested a game where the player is escaping from prison and has to avoid the search lights. We had some discussion about top-down vs side on platform style gaming, MiniTroll initially preferring the latter. I thought the former would be simpler, and that is what we decided to go with. Basic outline of player, maze, exit and two spotlights came together very quickly.
Development was generally in short bursts of 30 minutes to an hour, interrupted by going to the library, stopping for reading breaks or for snacks. MiniTroll had ideas for the title screen, but we decided to start with a playable level instead… MiniTroll enjoyed drawing the background and maze. We looked at some of the Scratch examples for inspiration – the PacMan example showed how to test for collision between one colour on a sprite against background colours. We used this approach to test when the player’s feet are touching a wall. MiniTroll found it challenging to work out the logic for testing collisions without sticking on the walls when trying to the turn round – so we took a screen break.
After the break, we fixed up the wall collision scripts and posted our first playable! http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/moomintroll/1987783
Worked through for another couple of hours – focussing on adding the title screen, a second level, and the logic for managing game state (the only part I did without MiniTroll). Before dinner we had our second playable ready: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/moomintroll/1987940
During dinner, the second level was re-designed on paper, and implemented after dinner when MiniTroll worked solo for a while. MiniTroll also added buttons to the title screen and an instructions screen at this point. I helped fix up the scripts for these, then MiniTroll decided to add a third level. This was pretty easy, and we had our ‘final’ game uploaded pretty quickly: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/moomintroll/1988135
Then MiniTroll pointed out that we had forgotten to add sound! Disaster! Somehow it had been left off the to-do list. A quick jaunt to Sainsbury to get batteries for the Casiotone, a hunt around the study for cables to connect the line out to the laptop, and we were in business! A siren-like blare for when the player is caught and a triumphant ta-da!!! for successful escape were soon added. It was our intention to add music too – but MiniTroll’s repertoire isn’t very extensive at the moment – tunes she knows either being not too suited for the game or still in copyright . So we have no music – but perhaps next time!
MiniTroll went to bed and I slumped in front of the television. The Bourne Identity was on ITV (again!). It is one of those films I can always watch one more time… Then I remembered that I hadn’t uploaded the last version of Spotlight Search. A very minor script fix, and game uploaded. Off to bed, happy to have completed our Jam entry in one day.
