So then I woke up 6 hours after the theme was announced, then slept again, then finally got to start thinking of the theme after 12 hours. I’ve decided to go solo on my 2nd Ludum Dare (the first one was with Soupware).

After about 6 to 8 hours worth of on and off work (in between watching StarCraft World Championships — damn was it intense), here’s what I have so far:

Yes, darkness and corridors and basic Unity shapes lol

I’ve decided on trying out a genre I’ve never tried out before — suspense. Since ’10 seconds’ gave a feeling of urgency to me, I decided to just fck it and give this a try. I personally don’t play suspense/horror games because I absolutely cannot stand the suspense, so I’m sure this’ll be interesting to make, heh.

I originally planned to join the Compo, but since I lack the proper recording instruments to create convincing ambience and sound effects, I might have to revert to the Jam, in order to use open source soundscapes and whatnot. Oh well, at least it’ll give me more time to hopefully refine the concept of this suspenseful game lol!

…

Oh, and what’s up with the title, you ask? Well, you need to crouch in front of doors in order to open them, and you need to crouch —
for 10 seconds! HA! Damn I’m so smart okay stop reading now
——-
Tools:
Unity3D Free (mixture of C# and JavaScript)
Paint.NET
Audacity
FL Studio 10

all in a cheap, 4 year old laptop! Ha! Beat that! … actually you can so yeah

So then my first person suspense clustercluck of a game is taking shape pretty nicely.

9 hours left into the Compo, and here’s what I’ve finished:

• two 10 second mechanics
• moody lighting and balancing
• initial room and pseudo-tutorial implemented
• level designs planned out
• failure and difficulty conditions planned out

Sounds like a lot, but then again, 9 hours left into the Compo, and here’s what I have to do:

• implement 3rd 10 second mechanic, which ties closely to the —
• failure condition, which again ties closely to —
• enemy/creature spawning and AI

And we have more:

• switch activation triggers (there should be a changing of lights and particles and all that)
• checkpoint implementation (don’t wanna have the player to start everything over)
• implementing level designs
• sound effects, ambience, and music (a REALLY important mood-setter IMHO)
• make a title and backstory for the game!

So essentially, I won’t make it for the Compo (and I still have to make music and ambience and whatnot!). So I’ll be going into the Jam!

To everyone struggling to finish their games, don’t fret, and just do it! Don’t be too hard on yourselves!
Here’s a calming screenshot of my current build to soothe everyone agitated with the deadline:

So soothing.

 I’m actually having a problem playtesting my game because I’m scared as hell when I try it so yeah good luck to me

I recently discovered that my game, North Exit, has a large, game-ruining bug; I somehow omitted the code for detecting a lose condition, so the player can’t lose the game (no, no that game, but yeah).

However, that doesn’t really make the game unwinnable or less playable — it just makes it infinitely easier.

My plea for help is: is it okay to re-upload the game with that single bug fix? Will that break any Jam rules? I know the Jam is relatively lax on rules, but I just want to be doubly sure. :’D

Thank you to anyone who’ll reply! I’ll go ahead and play your games too if you respond! <3

Tags: bug, bugfix, jam, north exit