Game dev student here, taking part in my first Ludum Dare.  I’ll be participating in the jam this time around.  I didn’t have much time to prepare, so I’ll be sticking with Unity.  Best of luck!

Upon learning the theme, my first instinct was to dive into Google for inspiration.  One of the first things I saw was Piet Mondrian’s Composition No 10, and my mind immediately jumped to a game that utilized this aesthetic.

Some further digging led to a GDC post mortem for Osmos, in which the designers defined what a minimalistic game consists of.  One part in particular stood out to me:

“Expose only the meaningful actions provided by the system.”

Essentially, I’ve decided to experiment with Unity’s physics engine, which in the past I’ve avoided using.  While a minimalistic puzzle game might be a “low hanging fruit” for some, I’m expecting it to be a good technical and design challenge for me.  I currently have a scene that the player can rotate by clicking and dragging, and a sphere that bounces around the scene.  Now that I know I can do something like this, it’s time to start brainstorming further on the design end.

Best of luck to everyone!

Shortly after getting a core mechanic put in place last night, I decided to get some sleep.  I woke up a couple of hours ago, and started making some proof of concept designs.  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

The game’s core mechanic consists of rotating a De Stijl-esque environment.  The goal is to move the black sphere into the blue swathe, which will then load the next level.  Red swathes will reset the level.  I’ve been playing around with a few interesting ancillary mechanics, and my plan is to keep expanding upon the features until this concept reaches it’s logical conclusion.  I also want to put some effort into making the levels compositionally faithful to the art movement.  Finally, if I have time, I might experiment with different color palettes, which may or may not throw the player for a loop.

For now, it’s time to take a little break and get something to eat.  Hope everyone else is having a good time!

I just wrapped up a playtest session!  I have seven levels at the moment, so I felt now was a good time to put the game in front of somebody to see if the designs work.  It’s always important to test your game with a fresh set of eyes, because what may seem intuitive to the designer might be really confusing for players.

For example, I found out that the control scheme for the game was not very good.  Originally, players had to click and drag the mouse left or right to rotate the environment, but my tester wanted to be able to drag up and down as well.  Furthermore, I found that a few of my designs were obnoxiously difficult.

This level, in particular, is way too hard.  Even I’m having trouble with it!

Unfortunately, I’m coming close to cutting a feature from my project.  My game (tentatively untitled), requires the player to rotate a Pier Mondrian-esque puzzle in order to navigate a ball to the exit.  Early on, I had the idea to have certain components of the level not rotate (ie, they are static objects).  I just implemented the feature, and honestly I think that the results are sort of mediocre.

Pictured above is a level that hasn’t been rotated yet.  By this point in the game, the player has grown accustomed to everything on the screen rotating.

As you can see, the white square does not rotate with the rest of the environment.  This is intentional design, but I don’t think it’s very beneficial.  The biggest issue is that it is incredibly disorienting, perhaps too disorienting.

I haven’t abandoned it just yet, but I’m heavily considering it.  At this point, I already have 9 levels made, so it would probably be wise to abandon this feature and work on polishing the existing levels.  I also need to work on GUI and sound design as well.

I decided to abandon adding more content, and decided to just put the finishing touches on it and push it out the gate.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=21520

This Ludum Dare snuck up on me, so I’m not very well prepared.  This is my second go around, with my last LD being #26.

I’m hoping to be able to submit something in 48 hours, but am willing to call it quits if the weekend gets too hectic for me.  Either way, good luck everyone, and be sure to get some sleep!

Tools and Media:

Engine:  Unity

Audio:  BFXR

Visuals:  Photoshop

I’ve decided to form a group with a couple of friends and aim for entering the Jam.  The idea we came up with is…kind of odd and perhaps a little too ambitious for 72 hours.  Whether we crash and burn or succeed, the experience will be interesting.

We’ve decided to approach the idea of “You Only Get One” in a rather meta way.  Basically, you take upon the role a child who, for whatever reason, can only afford to purchase one game a year.  Each person in our group will build a small micro game (which also will somehow reflect upon the theme).  The game you choose for a year is the game you will be stuck with.  Once an undetermined amount of time passes, a year will have passed by and you will be able to choose a new game.  If you’re familiar with Retro Game Challenge, it’s very similar in concept.

I’m not even sure if what I’m writing here makes much sense.  Hopefully it does.  I’m personally running on low energy right now, so I’ll probably be getting a good nights rest before I begin development in earnest.  So far, I have a verrrry rudimentary prototype in place that allows a user to select a game and “load” it onto the screen.  After I get some sleep and make some progress, I’ll be making another post that breaks down my process.

Click on image for .GIF action!!

Our team of three is slowly moving forward.  Each member of the team is building a small microgame based on the theme.  As we progress forward, we’re hoping to fuse everything together to create a Warioware or Retro Game Challenge type experience.

Khoa is creating a racing, dodge the obstacle game where the player must navigate a unicycle through oncoming traffic.

I’m currently working on a “find the hidden object” game where the player must locate a target in a large, constantly moving crowd.  I’ve had to learn software and Unity tricks to get this implemented, so I’m a little bit behind.  Getting to know Blender and Unity navmeshes has been an interesting experience so far.