This is my first dare, but I have done a few 24hr gamejams in the past.  I will probably be doing the Jam with my wife.

We will get a game done, but I’m not sure how featured it will be yet.  Waiting on the theme before we come up with ideas.  Constraints FTW!!!

We will be using Unity 3.4, Maya, Inkscape and sfxr.  I plan to start from (near) scratch.  The only code that I might grab is the standard assets that come with Unity.  Every other bit of code I plan on creating as needed.

Hoping to post something every few hours, but we will see what happens.

This is going to be a blast!! Can’t Wait!!

Well we did it.  We survived our first Ludum Dare and came out feeling like we accomplished our goal.  So now we are going to go over the experience.

Idea

When the comp / jam started, we took immediately to talking through any idea that we could come up with.  We went from being stuck in a house, to being stuck in a prison and even a few others.  As Friday night dragged on, we went back and forth several time without settling on a game idea.  Sleep, we decided, would help us think.

On Saturday morning, the idea started.  It was very simple at first.  You are in a tunnel and trying to escape.  What you were trying to escape was irrelevant at that moment.  We had a direction.  Immediately the coding began.  At first is was a cube and there was a square corridor.  The movement was the first thing to be put into the game.  The thought was that using physics and gravity, we could come up with an interesting game.  It might not be very deep, but we were hoping it would be fun.

What Went Wrong

Several things went wrong during the weekend.  Things from choosing the right idea, time taken by family, the day job taking time and a lack of play testing.

From the beginning, we wanted to do something unique and original.  We wanted something that stood out from other games for being unique.  In the end, we should have focused on making a fun game.

Family things got in the way pretty quickly.  Most of our time on Saturday was taken on a trip to my Mom’s house.  It happens, but better planning on our end could have helped us to minimize the impact.

On Monday, I had to get back to the day job.  This takes a lot of my time and energy dealing with the everyday IT stuff.

The family and job stuff really came back to hurt us.  There were several game features that we really wanted to do, but we ran out of time to get it done.

The final thing that went way wrong; We did not have anyone play test our game.  This could have helped us refine the controls a little more and ensure that the game idea was fun for other people.

What Went Right

We did a really good job of sticking with a simple game idea that would be easy to finish in the allotted time.  Having been in 3 previous 24 hr game jams, we were fortunate enough to have seen this first hand.

We managed scope creep very well.  There were several planned game features and graphical enhancements for our game.  The smart decision on our end was to get the game play working and then go back and add polish.  Had it not been for this, we could have easily became bogged down in trying to overload the game features.

The art turned out very well.  The models were mostly low poly with the details handled by the textures.  The textures themselves were part of a pack that we had purchased from Dex-soft.  They were purchased early this year in anticipation for a sci-fi game that we had in mind.

The sound and music selections worked well with the art and overall style of the game.  We used sfxr to generate the sounds for the game.   The sounds were randomly generated until it sounded right.  The music came from several music packs that we bought from Artieria.  Again these were bought in anticipation for another game.

Overall

It was a great experience and just getting a game done is more than enough reward.  I’m hoping that at least a few people enjoy the game, but even if you don’t be sure to give us some constructive feedback.  We might choose to continue working on the game idea … only time will tell.

Here is our game idea for LD22.

We decided to make a puzzle game – The name is yet to be decided.

Here is a screenshot:

LD22 Entry - Alpha 0.5

The premise is pretty simple:

There are a number of pieces on the level and you need manipulate them to that you end up with one piece alone.  You use the arrow keys to move the pieces in that direction (IE: up – moves them up).  The pieces move until they hit something or go off the board.

Try out the Alpha and let us know what you think in the comments.

We have a few gameplay additions that we are planning and hopefully we can get them all added in time.  For the end game we are hoping to get 10 – 20 levels in place.

Here is the postmortem for our LD22 jam entry : Gemclusion.  This was our second Ludum Dare (this first being LD21), and learning from our experiences from the last one we decided from the beginning to make sure to keep the game simple (K.I.S.S.).

Warmup

This time around we benefited greatly from an accidental warmup contest: Game Prototype Challenge.  It’s another for fun game dev contest, but it’s on a smaller scale than LD (29 entries in the last one).  During the GPC contest, we made a point to keep it simple and have fun with the contest.  This is an important thing to remember when doing these contests.  Too often we get caught up in the malaise of trying to make the ultimate game and forget about having fun.  It was after the GPC contest that we happened to remember that the next LD was starting soon.  Once we realized that LD was coming, we started getting ourselves ready.  The next week or so was spent relaxing and waiting for the Theme.

Theme

During the voting rounds there were main themes that we were hoping for.  In particular, I was hoping that we would get more of an unconventional theme (like midgets) … sadly we will never know that greatness that would have been mighty midget magnets … but I digress.  In the end Alone was chosen as the theme.  Once it was announced, we immediately sprang into action and started talking out some game ideas that would fit an interpretation of Alone.  Since we wanted something unconventional, we decided to stay away from any ideas involving a person being or becoming alone.  It was at this time that we came up with a rough puzzle game idea where the goal was to get a single puzzle piece alone.

A small doodle of our LD22 Prototype

Prototype

Since we liked the idea we decided to do a quick and dirty prototype.  It would have no effort placed in sounds, art or guis; instead it would focus just on the Gameplay.  So I went to work with the quickness that is afforded to me by my bearded-ness. [PIC] Within moments I had re-made my doodle in Unity [PIC].  Once the level was in place, I was able to quickly get all everything working for the prototype.  It included moving the pieces with the goal of destroying all the pieces but one.  To destroy a piece, you had to move it through an opening and into an invisible wall.  It took about 2 hours to get the prototype completed.

LD22 Entry - Alpha 0.5

[PLAY THE PROTOTYPE]

Gameplay

Over the span of the weekend, the gameplay was expanded upon a bit.  Most of Saturday morning was spent adding new gameplay elements (warp points, breakable walls, pass-through walls, merging pieces and gate walls).

• The warp points would teleport a piece from one spot on a level to another.
• The breakable walls were special wall blocks that would ‘break’ when a piece ran into them.  The walls could be set to take 1 or more impacts before breaking.
• The pass-through walls looked just like the other wall blocks, but a piece could slide right through them.
• The merging pieces would allow for pieces to be combined and form a new piece.
• Then we added gate walls that would only allow certain pieces to pass-through them.

A small doodle of the invisible walls that would destroy pieces

A list of the various gameplay elements

The  rest of Saturday was spent testing the gameplay and trying to come up with level designs.

Sunday morning we realized that we were shooting for too much.  Here we had several different gameplay elements that we were trying to fit into 20 levels.  It was a much bigger task then we were anticipating.  So we changed directions and decided to cut out gameplay elements that a) were not much fun or b) would take too much effort to get the 20 levels done in time.  During this process we also changed the game pretty significantly.  Originally the idea was to get the other pieces to disappear by having them leave the game-board.  After cutting through the game elements, we ended up where you had to merge all the pieces together.  We removed the warp points, breakable walls, pass-through walls and decided to make the levels closed in.  This turned into a really good direction and helped spark a 8+ hr session where were able to create all 20 levels.

Graphics

Almost all of the graphical work was texture based.  The game only used primitives for the in game items. We didn’t start any work on the GUI / HUD images or the in game textures until Sunday.  We wanted to wait to make sure we had all the gameplay done … after all it’s a game.  While the art makes up 90% of it, that other 10% is very important and often can take more time then the art.

Audio

We originally had planned to make a few different tracks for the game using FL Studio.  Sadly, we haven’t really used it much and we were not familiar enough to get that done.  In then end we used sounds that we already had from a friend and then added him to the credits.

Sleep

We have done several game jams of various lengths (24+ hrs) and several times we made the awesome decision to stay up the whole time.  One time I was awake for 44 1/2 hrs straight … and that includes the 5 – 6 hr drive to and from Pittsburgh (so 10 – 11 hrs driving total) and the time for the competition (it was a 24hr game jam + the time for setting up / packing up + the time for the awards etc).  Nothing I can say will ever describe how bad it sucks to be up for 44 1/2 hrs with all that activity.

So this time around we made sure to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and not try to stay up for the whole weekend.  I can say that it was one of the best decisions that we made this time around.  Some of the better ideas we had with the gameplay came after getting a good nights sleep.  We set clear goals for the day and made sure to get as close as we could before going to bed.

Final Thoughts

So there was our Postmortem for Gemclusion.  Hopefully it was a good read and provided some useful advice to someone for something for some reason … yeah that would be nice :).  Please be sure to play and rate our game.  We are looking for any feedback that we can get that will help improve the game.

We are currently planning on expanding the game and releasing it on PC and/or Android for $1 – $2.  We are not sure how many levels it will have (20 – 50 is probably a good bet) and we are still deciding the gameplay elements (probably some of the originals with a twist + some new ones).  We might also  change the movement a bit to coincide with a phone for the Android version.  Additionally we plan to update the art (both in-game and GUI / HUD items).  It should be a lot of fun.

I will post again with and update when we get things going after the holidays.  Until then have a safe and happy holidays!!

This will be my third LD, but this will be the first one where I do the compo.  In the past I have just done the jam.

I’m planning on using Unity3D for my game engine, FL Studio and sfxr for sounds and music, Wings3D for models and another tool for doing the animations (Blender, Milkshape or something else).

I am also planning on live streaming as I work on my entry.   I will post the channel later on.

This is going to be a blast and I can’t wait for the theme to be announced

I spent last night coming up with a few ideas (3) for games that I think fit the theme of Tiny World.  After doodling out my ideas, I have picked one that I think should be a fun game.  If I get the chance, I might try to do more than one game (but that might be pushing it).

Here in a few minutes I will be live streaming my work on the prototype of my game idea.  The art will be rough, the sounds will be non-existent and the coding will be at level 9000!  If you get a chance stop in and chat with me – Twitch.Tv

Keep up with me on twitter to know when I start the stream.  Once I’m done with the prototype, I will be soliciting others to play-test and give me feedback.

Thanks

– Wiggle

The game that I came up with is called – Atlas Saves The Day

Atlas Saves The Day Doodle

The game concept is pretty simple, you are Atlas and this is the story of how you saved the day

Essentially, you must protect the tiny world from being destroyed by the incoming asteroids.

Atlas Saves The Day - Prototype

Please download the prototype (Currently Windows Only – I can put up a mac build if anyone wants it) and give me any feedback that you have

Thanks,

-Wiggle

Minute Maze

You have a minute to get through the maze.  Good Luck!!

A quick screenshot