I told myself I’d get the post-compo version done before the end of voting… and I just barely made it!
I added artwork, music and sfx, UI improvements, and a new subject to investigate.
You can play the new version here, or play and rate the compo version.
I’m in once again for my 7th LD!
Engine: Unity (for the first time!)
Graphics: Photoshop
Music/Sound: auto-tracker and sfx
My goal is to make a single, simple, fun element of gameplay! Everything after that is just polish. That’s what I said last time and then I ended up making a very complex game without fun gameplay… but this time I’m really going to stick to it!
We managed to get in some game development time despite attending multiple Journey into Nyx prereleases – and the result is BUNKER 29, a small but tricky resource management game. Give it a try!
This will be my 8th Ludum Dare and I’m very excited! Unlike previous LDs, I’ll be working alone and I’m determined to finish on time and not drop into the jam. I’ll be limiting the time I spend on it the best I can, since my best games (Busy King, Nod) have all come out of LDs where I had very little time and had to keep it simple.
Tools:
Good luck everyone!
I’ve (almost) finished the art for my game! Woo! It’s an endless runner style, but with some additional complications. I also got some programming done, so I expect to be able to get the game working tomorrow. I still need a name for it though…
Bar the Door is a fast block-puzzle game where you spend every day as a human blockading the door.. and every night as a werewolf trying to get out and murder innocent townspeople!
My entry is Rocketship Rescue – an Asteroids-style game with a unusual control scheme! Can you get the hang of controlling the ship with using just the left and right keys and rescue all the randomly-generated aliens?
I still have a lot to do to finish the game, but I’m happy with my shapeshift mechanic!
For LD44 I was determined to make a fun game, even if it wasn't the most creative interpretation of the theme, rather than struggle and fail to think of a brilliant idea. For the theme "your life is currency", I came up with the idea of an RTS where the life force that powered your units could be exchanged for different units or various buildings and upgrades. Since a full RTS was totally out of scope, I decided to focus on just the building aspect and let the player drop units directly into the slots for different tasks, like in a worker-placement board game.
Because the game is about waiting for workers to generate resources so you can build structures, it resembles an idle game, but I wanted to keep the experience snappy and engaging because LD voters have a lot of games to get through. I tried to tune it so that there’s value in keeping a close eye on things and actively shifting resources around, but you can also play at a more relaxed pace. Another part of keeping the game "short and sweet" was creating a clear victory condition so that the game has a satisfying ending.
The game is written in TypeScript, HTML, and CSS. At the beginning of the weekend, I tried to set up the UI using Angular, which I was interested to try out. It looked good at first but I ran into trouble trying to figure out the "Angular way" to handle the dragging and interaction. Saturday afternoon I scrapped the Angular components and went back to manipulating the DOM directly. I should have heeded the advice not to try out a new technology during a jam!
As far as the code itself, it turned out very simple. There are only 3 types of objects in the game: Structures, like the Sawmill or Quarry, have Slots which can hold Stacks of resources, including wood, stone, and workers. Each Stack only knows its resource type and count, and can be dragged by the mouse. Each Slot accepts exactly one type of resource and handles a new Stack being dropped by merging it with its existing Stack. Each Structure manages its various lists of Slots: it can be built or upgraded only when its upgrade slots are full; it starts production only when its worker slots and input slots are full; and during production, it creates new resource stacks in its output slots.
This system has very few special cases and almost no dependency between objects other than the Structure > Slot > Stack relationship. Thanks to this, I probably spent the least time debugging of any game jam I’ve done ever - which helped make up for the time I wasted on Angular!
Other than a few sprites, the visuals are all done with CSS, and mostly kept separate from the functionality. This jam really opened my eyes to the power of CSS for decorating game elements in a modular way. For example, each div that contains slots is tagged with the appropriate class, like 'input' or 'output'. In the CSS, slots in an ‘input’ div are given a different appearance than those in an ‘output’ div - and the slot itself never needs to know whether its an input or output slot!
I'm happy with the game design and code of Soul Builder. The aspect that I most wish I could have improved is the overall look of the game, since the gray boxes don’t make the game look very appealing in screenshots. If I have time, I’d love to make a new version with a more colorful board-game-inspired look. I’m also working on fixing some of the messiest parts of the code so I can share that.
Some commentors have mentioned that they’d like to play a longer version, which is always great to hear, but I’m not sure what I would add to the gameplay if I did continue to work on it. If you played the game and have ideas, let me know! If not, you can play and rate it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/soul-builder
Diminutive Dungeon is a procedural puzzle game about two tiny heroes exploring a tiny dungeon.
I thought the compo went really well this time - although I wish I had time to add sound effects. I tested out a few designs (including a solo hero in a 3x3 dungeon!) but the version with two heroes turned out to be more interesting - and as a bonus, my game now supports couch co-op!
For my compo entry, I drew all the sprites in just 8x8 pixels. The whole game is only 96x88 pixels total! That made in-game UI a challenge. Most of the gameplay can be discovered by playing, but I also wanted to include purchasable upgrades and equipment for our brave dungeon delvers.
In order to present the information in a readable way, I came up with the idea of an overlay in the style of a retro instruction booklet. I was thinking of the amazing instruction manual in Tunic, which is inspired by games like the Legend of Zelda. It would fit in with the retro look while freeing me from the pixel limitations.
Sadly, time ran out before I was able to implement the instruction booklet in the game. For now, players have to reference the instructions on the game page while they play. If I work on the game mode, I'd definitely like to incorporate it into the game itself!
You can try the game here if you don't mind reading instructions!