Okay so I started working on a minimalistic artist simulator, and it’s slowly become apparent that it’s difficult to make anything good-looking in it. Below is the best thing I could make in my several attempts. It might look okay, but really you just mash a bunch of objects together in creative ways. Now the goal of the game is just to make something not terrible, as opposed to something beautiful, hah.

Just finished up with my entry!

Great to have completed something after a long while, I learned a lot from working on such a different kind of game. In hindsight I could probably have changed the general design of it for the better, but in general I’m happy with it. I hope players enjoy it and get something out of there time with it.

Some Day

Despite its title as a competition, Ludum Dare is an event mostly there for people to learn from making quick games. My entry for the last Ludum Dare ranked very well at the cost of being a bit too familiar in structure, so this time I resolved to make something more unique and learn more from the experience; in this sense I succeeded, and I suitably created a more flawed game because of it.

About

Of my 3 shots at Ludum Dare my entry Some Day is definitely the biggest, and the one I find most interesting. It’s also the most unkempt; buggy and complex to the point where I felt uncomfortable hitting the submit button. You’re given an open area to roam about in and discover for yourself that the objective is to collect the 7 orbs spread throughout. Opposition comes in the form of survival elements, where the player must maintain several values such as health and hunger, while avoiding getting killed by apparent hazards. Nothing is explained about the world, lending everything an unfamiliar quality and further increasing the likelihood of failure. The theme takes presence in the fact that the player can receive one gift a day picked from a random selection of items, and the soft perma-death element. The uses of these items also go unexplained and are sometimes only learned about through wasting them on reception.

The Beautiful

The cryptic nature of the game is both its greatest asset and setback. Even when the game is confusing or broken there’s a bit of richness in being free to wander and learn in all the chaos. Even if there wasn’t time to keep the game functionally sound and to polish everything, I’d say having so many opportunities for players to create situations unique to themselves counts for something. The most prevalent compliment I’ll get will be on the visuals, which I always appreciate, but at this point often rings hollow as I can’t gauge improvement, nor am I putting much time/thought into it comparatively.

The Ugly

There are certain unsafe practices that require a great deal of care to pull off well in a game. A couple of these found their way into the final product, and like omens the unfavorable effects spawned from them; relatively large scale (effort spread thin) and inexplicit objective/properties (some can’t figure out what’s going on) are what plague the game. If I had spent more time constructing/reconsidering the idea and scope these issues could have been avoided. For all the good that may be in the game, the clunk makes it unpleasant to find, and it’s always a bit sour receiving criticism on things you’ve been kicking yourself over already.

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What’s been reinforced from all of this? Simply that vision is key, that I like making non-constrained experiences,  and that accommodations are necessary for less streamlined aspects of a game, assuming you’re not compromising intentions. Obvious messages perhaps, but they hit hardest coming from an actual product rather than supposition.

Thanks for reading. As said, I find what’s here of Some Day to be interesting, so I’m off to see if I can build it into a better and smoother experience.

Tags: 2D, compo, postmortem, some day

I made a game called Autumn Physics. It’s a crossup between the much loved Physics and Autumn game genres.

You can play my game HERE

HERE’s a Screenshot:

If you click the link you’ll get to see this image again!