We're in the final stretch, everyone! I'm feeling good. Gameplay is working, art is done, the title screen is in! I still need to add the loss condition and results UI. I'm also hoping to have some time to add sound effects. The 12:00 PM deadline basically means I need to submit before going to bed, or at least be just a few clicks away from submission. We'll see how I hold up! Good luck to us all 🤘

I'm pretty happy with this submission (my fourth overall, last time I did a Jam with a friend). I actually got around to sound effects and a bit of music for the first time ever, and it really makes things feel more complete.

• Play now on Itch.io!
• Check out the Ludum Dare project page!

• Play Bad Apples on Itch
• View the Bad Apples LD project page

I had a blast participating in my fourth Ludum Dare! Congrats to everyone who submitted!

This post-mortem talks about my process and experience in some more depth.

Gameplay

The concept came together really quick, within 30 minutes or so. It was a very fully-formed idea from the start. A couple other ideas I had before landing on Bad Apples:

• A multiplayer harvesting game where you're running around in a field with others. Watch out for snakes!
• Another truck-based game in an orchard, but side scrolling and something more like Metal Slug.

In the end, I liked the idea of trying to make a game that took place entirely on a single 320×240 pixel screen.

Graphics

Once I was happy with the gameplay concept, I jumped right into art. This was my first time using Aseprite for a Ludum Dare. I switched a couple months ago (from Pyxel Edit), and couldn't be happier. Aseprite really does make the process faster and easier, and I can't recommend it highly enough! I spent something like 8 hours on graphics work.

Schedule

I didn't realize Ludum Dare started at 12:00 PM instead of 6:00 PM Pacific now! This was almost disastrous, but thankfully I noticed the theme announcement during lunch. That meant I only lost about 30 minutes. My schedule was roughly as follows:

• 12:00 PM Friday - 4:00 AM Saturday (~16 hours): Graphics, initial worm brain code.
• 11:30 AM Saturday - 10:30 AM Sunday (~23 hours): Finish code, audio, deploy!

Audio

This was the first time I've added audio to one of my Compo submissions, and I think it made a huge difference! I added sound effects for most of the action, along with two little ditties for game start and game over. It was fun trying to figure out what in my office might make for a good audio fit. Editing was done in Logic Pro, mostly just some pitch editing and reverb.

• Truck motor: Dremel. I also adjust the pitch using the damped throttle input mapped to an animation curve. That gives a bit of a "rev up/down" sound; it sounded very weird without it!
• Boomerang cutting apple: A piece of wood quickly sliding across a cutting mat on my desk.
• Boomerang whooshing: A length of copper pipe swung through the air.
• Worm chomping apple: Me chomping an apple.

Tools

I made an effort to stick to only free tools for this submission (i.e. no paid assets where I couldn't include the source code). The only Asset Store package I used is the free version of DOTween. Other tools:

• Unity 2022.1.24f1
• Visual Studio Code
• Aseprite
• Logic Pro

Meta tools

• GIF Brewery (Turning screen recordings to GIFs for the LD site)
• Git Tower (Git GUI)
• Things (Todo tracking)
• Music (Mostly Say Anything)

Thanks for reading and playing!

• Play Bad Apples on Itch
• View the Bad Apples LD project page