I spent yesterday night working on the physics mechanics and control scheme, pictured is a hurriedly modeled sub. This is my first LD + I’m also very new to coding and gamedev in general, but I hope I’ll be able to finish something fun by the end! After I perfect the mechanics, I’ll be spending the rest of the time making the environment and visual effects.

Thought I’d make a blog post for a break. My control scheme works fairly well (thought it’s pretty basic.) The controls are touchy and because they’re physics-based, you can get out of control pretty easily. However, I feel like this adds to the game because you are supposed to be commanding an unmanned submersible. There are a lot of clipping issues, which I will try to fix after everything else is done, otherwise I’ll run out of time for everything.

Here’s a shot of all of the underwater caverns you get to explore:

So I’ve finally given in and put my frozen pizzas in the oven, so I’ll write while I wait for them to cook.

I’ve spent the last few hours modeling. Checklist:

Models – 50-70%

Music – Done (I used a generator to make 10 tracks)

Textures – Almost done, I can reuse most for rest of models

Basic mechanics – Done

Actual game/objective – NOT STARTED O_O

Story – SKETCHES BUT NOT STARTED AAAAAAAAH

I think I’ll definitely be able to finish, considering I have nothing else to do this weekend and I’ve decided that making fun videogames for an internet challenge is a higher priority than my homework.

Everything is pretty much done at this point, all that’s left for tomorrow is tacking on a rudimentary story/structure.

The main problem that I don’t have time to fix is the physics interactions with the controls- Any collisions with the walls cause the rigidbody player to go crazy, spinning out of control. If it was a less extreme effect I would actually like it, because it would add more challenge, but as it is it gets too crazy. The only ways to reduce this effect are to increase mass or reduce speed, both of which slow down the player too much in the tight, angled caverns below. So my solution is just to give the player a reset button they can use if they can’t recover from a collision.

Goodnight, everyone, hopefully I’ll be finishing up tomorrow!

 

WHAT IF I DON’T FIX THIS BUG ON TIME? I REALLY WANT TO IMPLEMENT FEATURE X BUT I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME!

CRAP CRAP CRAP MY BASIC FUNCTIONALITY IS BROKEN AND I HAVE TO UPLOAD!

I’ve calmed down now, I have a working build and it’s uploading as I type

I had a lot of fun, my game didn’t come out too great (I think it will be boring for people. Not sure because nobody has playtested it yet X_X). I learned a LOT of new things.

I can’t wait for LD30 now!

So my first Ludum Dare  is over, I had a blast. I finished an entire game for the first time, so I am also writing my first ever post mortem.

Following a general guide, I’ll cover some things that went well and some things that went terribly.

Features implemented well:

1. The general aesthetic. Yes, it is far from professional or even good looking, but I set out to make a dark, cold underwater word full of hazardous looking obstacles and winding subterranean tunnels. Aside from having to fix about a million ngons manually in Blender, sculpting the caves was fairly easy. I do have to say, though, that if I ever do caves again,  I will definitely use a different technique.
2. The submersible model itself. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time detail modelling anything, so I made the submersible out of primitives, based partly on a picture I found on Google and mostly on my imagination. Yes, it is pretty rough, but I think it actually looks like what it’s supposed to.
3. The menu system. My main menu is just a stripped-down copy of my main level, with each page located in a different spot on the map. The buttons are all 3D text. I really like the way it turned out, the only thing I regret was not taking advantage of the fact that the menu is in 3D space by making things move. If you look closely, the water is moving, but otherwise it might as well be a still image.

Features implemented badly/scrapped features/mistakes:

1. The control scheme is awful. The only reason it’s still there is because it works and I’m a C# noob. It works- but not well. Any collision screws up the rigidbody, causing the player to spiral wildly. It takes some really fighting with the controls to stop the spinning. I actually wrote a script that lets the player press a key to stop all forces, stopping this effect, but I forgot to implement it and am only now just thinking of it.
2. I’ll add a mistake I made. I’m more of an artist than a programmer, though I do both. On Saturday I realized I was focusing way too much on the art and not enough on the actual game. It got to the point where I was scrambling to debug the basic points mechanic 20 minutes before submissions were due on Sunday.
3. Scrapped feature- fish. I really wanted to do this, but I couldn’t realistically see having enough time to write a swimming AI and flocking AI.
4. I scrapped the story. Or, more accurately, ran out of time. I wanted the story to be dark, narrated by a scientist dude and the ship captain. Somehow the ship captain would end up murdering the scientist or something stupid like that. I was going to do voice acting. Just ran out of time.
5. Interactivity- I was going to make a ton of things interactive. “Press E to nudge” and the like, causing the world to react. One scene in my sketches called for a bunch of mines to be around an old boat. The player had to knock down a boulder from above onto the mines, smashing the boat in half and uncovering the next tunnel. Scrapped.
6. I could go on, but the last thing is something I may actually take the time to add in a future post-Ludum version- having to go back to the surface after completing the objective. My code for this refused to work so I scrapped it, but I wanted to make the player retrace their steps because it would increase playtime, and personally I think the tunnels look even cooler going the other way, what with the giant murky holes gaping in the ceiling.

All in all, I think I did well for my first Ludum Dare and my first completed game, and though I doubt I’ll be ranked high, I doubt people will outright hate it.

Anyway, see you all at Ludum Dare 30!

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=35904

Not ready to fully commit yet (plus I have to run off, I’ll be back later to actually start developing.)

I will say this- I just played a basic concept of my game with my brother in Adobe Illustrator, and despite the fact that in this earlier state it’s impossible, I think I have something here!

LUDUM DARE 30 YEAH

Despite having a bunch of things that needed attending to, I fleshed out my core mechanics and started building the base of the game in Unity. It’s 2:00 AM and I want to start fresh tomorrow, so I’m hitting the sack.

My biggest challenge for tomorrow is to get the turn system working. The focus of my game will be on the local 2-player mode, though I will include a singleplayer puzzle mode if I have enough time.

My game is fully functional now, though it isn’t as complex as I wanted.

I scrapped a lot of features because I didn’t plan the core mechanics in such a way that would make it easy for me to implement them. The way I did it is kind of dumb actually, but it works

It’s a 2 player (local) board game, where the goal is to connect 5 of your planets in a row by lining them up on one of the orange sunbeams.

I scrapped the powerups/wildcards I had because they just messed everything up, so in an effort to not make the game impossible I added four ways to win instead of just the one. Keep the players on their toes.

So I’m pretty much done, all I have left to do tomorrow is

1. Record some simple sound effects

2. Somehow put together some simple looping music tracks

3. Create a “Help” overlay that has arrows pointing to what each thing is

I’m pretty happy with how this has turned out, there are still a few bugs that are just annoying that I want to try and get to, but it’s actually a functioning game! Here’s a couple of really low quality gifs. One huge thing I’ve learned from this LD is that my PC is really due for a RAM upgrade.

That was a great LD, though I didn’t have access to virtually unlimited amounts of Dr. Pepper this time.

I really need to upgrade my 8GB of RAM. My style of multitasking for these things was just too much for my computer and I’ve had it grind to a halt several times.

Lastly, today also happens to be my last day of summer vacation before I start my senior year of high school. Really great way to spend it and I’m pretty happy with how my game turned out.

I’ll be writing a postmortem later, here’s a link if you feel curious

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=35904