Crossing my fingers for Beneath the Surface

I really lucked out with the theme. Outside of the competition, I have been working on a strategy game on a globe. Originally in that game, tiles were layered and you dug up layers to craft into weapons/units. Unfortunately, units ended up putting holes everywhere in the map and unit movement became really confusing with tile height differentials, so I removed this feature from my game.

I was sad to let go this feature, but it was for the best. Then, Beneath the Surface is announced as the Ludum Dare theme and I get excited to revive this mechanic! The name comes from the original goal – a hunt for gems hidden beneath the surface. This would behave as sort of reverse Minesweeper. You would dig up a layer and depending on the layer beneath it, a transformation would happen. Transformations were bad because they would throw off your scent for the hidden gems. This approach didn’t seem like it would work out the more I thought about it. The gameplay would probably resemble randomly clicking on tiles. I also considered some sort of match-3 game with the addition of tile height dimension, but this didn’t seem like a fruitful path either.

At this point, I scrapped everything and making a roguelike on a globe.  Tile transformations were no more. You would hunt for resources and craft them into upgrades. The only problem was I had nine hours left. I may come back to this in the future, but I did not have time to complete this during the Jam.

So I went back to the puzzle game. I was inspired by Hexic. Maybe I could do a Match-3 game after all, just not in straight lines. I was going to do Hexic but require tiles to be at the same height for removal. Then I had a better idea – rings. The specifics came later, just in time for submission (I was a little late, actually). And hey, it didn’t turn out terribly, all things considered. Still, people are having trouble grasping the mechanics. The rules probably require a good rewrite for clarity. A tutorial would be a good idea if I decide to improve upon the game in the future. Animations would also be helpful. I experimented with popping tiles out before transformations, but my rendering system prevented this from working properly.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=31866

So there is a huge barrier to entry for my game, StrataGEM. It takes a few rounds before things start to click and few players are aware of all of its rules. This is partially because its gameplay is quite abstract, but it is also due to my explanation method – description text. There has to be a better way! I should have included an in-game tutorial, but Crefossus has made the next best thing – a video guide:

Alright, I’m working on the Post Compo version of StrataGEM.

I’m adding simple animations to the tile movement. This should help the player understand what is going on when they make an action. The plan is to “pop out” tiles before moving them. They have to rise above the other tiles or else they will Z-fight through their neighbors as they move. I also need to transform the tile as I move it because the base hexagons are slightly differently shaped. WIP pop out:

Speed of Light – Made in an incredible 3 hours, it’s one of the first that I played and it would be a shame if it didn’t make it into the results.  Give it a try, it doesn’t take long – easily the best 30-second long game I’ve played this compo.

SnakeFormer is the best puzzler I played during LD29. Part puzzle platformer, part Snake – beware, it gets dang hard almost immediately (level 2). You will be incinerated by lava no less than a few dozen times but energetic music is there to console you while you stumble through it.

WILL YOU ACCEPT ITS CHALLENGE?

BONUS: I did not get the title pun until long after completing the game.

Tags: gloating

I jammed last time and now trying compo. Using F# and Unity and limiting myself to one variable – everything else will be stateless functions.

Solo compo. Rust and OpenGL as backend for a software renderer.