Your Planet: Too Big is a series of puzzles where you're tasked with making a big world smaller. You do this by dropping a finite number of bombs, where each bomb can remove a contiguous set of matching terrain.
I have to say this was an incredibly simple yet fun idea, I just lost almost an hour on this - @agee1981
:sunglasses: Vicious Brainstorming
The compo starts at 9PM for me, so I usually draft out a few terrible ideas and go to bed. Then in the morning, I choose the one that, upon reflection, seems least ridiculous to attempt given the constraints of the compo. :stuckouttonguewinkingeye: This time my game ideas seemed extra terrible, so I just kept writing down these awful, awful bad ideas, until I popped out a few that were actually interesting. Thanks to @McFunkyPants for that advice.
Really good game, and one of the best use of the theme I’ve seen so far! - @david-cookie
:poop: Predictable Physics Are Hard to Predict
Using a continuous physics system to control terrain movements meant that it could be hard to accurately predict what would happen when you made a move. If you didn't wait until everything "settled" before making a move, you might even get different results from play to play. I think moving to a deterministic system isn't the solution - instead I should have tried different types of gameplay. An endless/waves mode might be more forgiving.
Sometimes it was a bit difficult to figure out how my change was going to effect the shape of the planet overall… - @spaceman
:sunglasses: Sound Effects
I recently got a Tascam DR-40 handheld recorder, because a) new gadgets are fun, and b) I wanted better sound effects. I made a list of sounds that I needed and ran off into the backyard to start crunching and dropping and touching stuff. Unfortunately it was a windy day, and I’m still lacking a windmuff (which I now know is a thing), so I moved into the garage. And surprise - there’s a lot of fun stuff to bang, scrape, and clang in my garage. Foley is fun. I liked making native sounds much more over a traditional retro sfx generator. Dumbells against dumbells make some awesome clanking.
The sounds are pretty good! With a little polish this could easily turn into a full game. - @flaterectomy
:poop: Music
I only had enough time for one song, and I shoved it into the main menu because, you know, it kind of sucked. I really should have set aside more time for music. Its absence in-game was particularly felt by many of the players. Part of the blame was simply I'm out of practice; I should have written a few songs beforehand to shake off the rust. But also I just didn't leave enough time in the schedule for it.
However why is there only music on the title-screen? Imo the game would’ve greatly benefited from music during the gameplay elements. -@elzach
:sunglasses: Day One Prototype
The idea I chose had a risk associated with it, which was what if the central mechanic wasn't fun? I settled on a theme and rolled out a working proof of concept on Friday night. That was a first, and it felt great! Especially because the concept worked and was interesting, that's a great motivator to continue.
Interesting game mechanics. -@arcticmattekar
:poop: Fell Into Some Rabbitholes
I spent four hours chasing down a bug that turned out to be a known Unity issue, spent a few hours on another bug that was of my own making, and realized after banging my head for a couple more hours that I used an older Unity Download Assistant and was not even on the latest 5.6 build. After such a great first day I was optimistic I'd have a submittable game by day two, and then could spend day three polishing and adding juice. But I failed to follow @McFunkyPants "three strikes and cut it" rule, so I was coding right down to the wire again.
The colors of the planet are a tad dull. I could imagine a more comical look for the game, alien portratis while chatting, for example. And more detailed landscapes with structures like houses (landmarks), boats, tractors, animals. I would suggest to use a “fantasy” weapon like a big laser instead of bombs in this case. - @zorg
I look forward to the next compo!
Play Your Planet: Too Big here!
Why is the bucket green? How come the hole doesn’t look like a hole? What now? Sorry, I already forgot the question.
