In the very beginning of developing our LD44 game Big Fascinating Mutants, we were planning to make 2 different characters with different abilities. And the second character would have been a half elephant halm mooseopus.
Finally, I have some free time to write a brief postmortem about my very first Ludum Dare game Big Fascinating Mutants.
Although I've been working as a game designer for years and have broad experience with crunches, I made a lot of silly mistakes. However, I'm happy with them as it's a valuable experience for my team and me. What kind of mistakes did I make?
Firstly, I suggested a redundantly big idea. We were planning from at the beginning to develop a colossal game for LD, e.g. we wanted to make: - 8 weapons; - 5 different enemies; - 1 boss fight; - 4 battle arenas with different level design; - 2 different player characters with unique abilities;
I was so excited at the start that I couldn't asses the volume of the work. Fortunately, our team managed to scale our ideas, but not very fast.
Secondly, I failed miserably with UI and UX. I have a lot of experience working on UI and UX alone as a game designer. However, this time I forgot to create a proper User Flow of the game which could have helped our programmer; as a result, our UX and UI awful.
Thirdly, the programmer had forgotten to make GIT for the project before the jam. Thus we lost a lot of precious time. We could have better spawner and AI, but we have what we have. Anyway, the programmer did his best and did a lot of work.
On the other hand, other game designers and I managed to make a lot of GD stuff, e.g. mutations design, level design (which we cut off) and balance table. Speaking about the table, it was beneficial when I had a hand in the game build for the first time. Unfortunately, it didn't help me make the game easier.
Although the problems we faced, I enjoyed the process and atmosphere of the jam. First of all, because the first two days of Ludum Dare 44 we spend at the creative space for indie game developers Indikator (RUSSIAN LANGUAGE) in Saint Petersburg. If you are in Saint Petersburg, you should visit this place. Additionally, I love seeing so many good games here on the web site. Hope, next time I'll be better.
We were making a list of enemies we need for Big Fascinating Mutants, and I called general enemies with different guns 'minions'. Because I thought to make a lot of them during the fight. And our artists suggested making them bananas which have coveralls and glasses of minions on. And the team fell in love with them from the first sight.
The idea of start screen of our game for LD44 was very sudden. I invented her right after my teammates, who were searching for sounds, had found the 'AAAAAAAAH' sound for our kamikaze frog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc48G7WlGWE
What I really get liked in the LD jam is the opportunity to have a hand in something new. For me, it was working on pixel art for the first time. Actually, it was small parts of the game art - projectiles and HP. And I created them via Affinity Designer (Mostly, I use it for UI mockups) and Piskel. For the most of you it's a usual part of work, although I worked with animated sprites for the first time.
The result you can watch in our Big Fascinating game for LD44.
2 days of Ludum Dare 44 were held in Indikator. It's a creative space for indie developers in Saint Petersburg. And you can check some games of participants here:
OK, now it is my turn to show my results of active themes slaughtering.
What can I say? I've found some interesting themes, however, it's was challenging because I tried to choose topics which don't have any obvious solutions and can be used in as many game genres as possible.
If you want to be efficient in your work, make your workplace facilitated for you. What's why I've spent some time changing my Gamemaker 2 appearance. I hope these changes would be useful for somebody.
I installed a new colour theme - VS Dark Blue.
I changed my default font on Monoid. If you don't like it, you can try to use Fira code.
I made some alterations to a colour palette of a GML text editor in order to make some parts of code look more distinctive.
Apparently, people who say that it's impossible to make this kind of the game in 2D forgot these games.
However, on the whole, this theme is awful for a three-day global game jam.
Hey there. It'll be my second LD jam, and now I want to participate in it much better than before. And here is my theme suggestions for this LD.
Yep, it'll be my second game where I participate solo, the first one was GMTK 2019. However, I don't participate in compo.
My toolkit is pretty small: 1. Game Maker Studio 2 with some small quality of life changes; 2. Itch.io as a place there I can find some good free 2D assets. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at making a good art, as well as sounds. 3. Asesprite and Affinity designer to work with some small staff.
Any game jam is a tricky challenge for a game designer, as you have to build cohesive gameplay in concise terms. As a result, you can make some mistakes which can ruin a player's experience. And here is some advice from me about jam game design.
1. Think about a core loop. Determine a core gameplay loop for your game and draw a simple flowchart of it. It's a usual thing for experienced game designers, even with a lack of time it can make all the difference, as you can see how your game should be played.
2. Set priority for all features. Prioritize your game features and systems through onion design pattern.
3. Stay focused. Focus on your key features, make them smooth and entertaining. Don't rush to implement additional mechanics, without a good core loop they won't work correctly.
4. Ask for help. If you are in a dead-end and can't make head or tail of how good is your idea - ask your friends and other participants of the jam, it's not a competition, help to each other.
5. Make it simple. Don't rush to implement art, take your time and make sure your idea works as intended with simple sprites. Yes, visuals are essential, but smooth gameplay is more significant.
6. Work with balance sheets. Make simple balance sheets for your game. They can save your time at the and of the jam and also facilitate your game balance process.
7. Play your game. Play your game and make balance adjustments, as I said before, even a jam game must have a smooth and enjoyable core gameplay loop. You can achieve this goal only through playtesting.
8. Enjoy the event. Relax and have fun, this event is about making games, not about winning the victory!
Suddenly, I've found an artist! Nonetheless, even as a solo participant, I was going to use hacknplan as my task tracker. It has the best tools for tracking your tasks, besides it's pretty easy to use and it was made specially for game development.
But I desperately need to chill out, as a game designer in game jams I look for some inspiration and challenges, but this theme is a pretty usual thing in my work because a good game progression is based on 'start with nothing'. Nonetheless, I'm not going to give up; I have a fun concept which I want to make in these three days.
Anyway, good luck and have fun!
To make a titled goose game in these 3 days.
Doors
Some Weapons
Simple explosive barrels.
