Brainstorming thought process for Ludum Dare 32: An Unconventional Weapon.
Just a few weeks ago, Justin and I participated in the 31st Ludum Dare. The theme: Entire Game On One Screen.
We decided ahead of time that we wanted to make a game that was more action-packed and also more polished than our usual fare. I'm not sure we totally succeeded in overcoming our propensity for making fairly complicated simulation games, but we did manage to make our most polished jam game yet. Play it here!
Our past experience with game jams lead us to decide that we wanted to be done with the core game by early afternoon of the second day (sooner than halfway through the jam). We would then use the second half of the jam entirely for polish. While we fell behind on that goal, finished the core game around 6 in the evening of the second day, that still left us the entirety of Sunday for polish. It worked out very well - I was able to put together a very dramatic opening cinematic, a generate a full range of sfxr-generated sound effects, and record some moody cello music (three elements that we usually don't have time for in jams).
While I'm not a huge fan of how the final gameplay turned out, others seem to be enjoying it much more than any of our previous attempts. We'll see what the results show in about 21 hours.
And the game is done as of last night. I think this one went well, considering Justin didn't stop playing it for 4 hours after we finished.
It's a space economy simulation game. You the player must build a network of trading routes to move materials to factories and consumers.
Play in your browser!
Just starting the first real day of coding for the 30th Ludum Dare. I started off this jam thinking of making some kind of simulation game - something where you, in a relatively low-pressure environment, could build up a system or a network and watch it do its work, like SimCity.
Justin and I had a short brainstorming session when the theme - Connected Worlds - was announced. They say to never go with your first idea - however, after considering two-screen tower-defense games, games where dinosaurs are attacking the modern world, games with constellations (I really liked that one and I hope some other people do it), and meeting Kevin Bacon, we eventually went with just that. This will be a game where you build up an interstellar shipping empire, moving goods between planets.
I also wanted to try to make use of multiple windows or views, and that goes well with theme. We're pretty sure we know what we are going to do with them. Early screenshot:
A few weeks ago, I participated in the 29th Ludum Dare. It has been a while, but not many posts, since I last participated in the Dare. The theme for this one was "Beneath the Surface".
I worked with Justin Britch on this one. We met just after the theme was announced to brainstorm. I really liked this theme - it evokes mystery and exploration, provides an easy setting (underground or underwater) to start with, and could simultaneously be tied into gameplay elements. While we thought it would have been a lot of fun to make "Ben Eath, the Surf Ace", we ultimately decided that we really wanted to go after the mystery, the thrill of exploration, fear of the unknown, and such themes. We also knew that we wanted to attempt to introduce some sort of narrative into the world.
The design was ambitiously scoped for a jam, and I'm happy I was able to turn out so many features.
The Good: Dedicating time during the development process for polish worked well for the game. When polish gets left as a task for the end of the jam, there's often no time to actually do it. I didn't leave a feature until it was in a state it could stay in.
I also didn't run into too many momentum-killer problems. I've worked on several smaller projects using HTML5 and ThreeJS over the past few months, so I knew some of its quirks and was able to work continuously without getting stuck on strange bugs, even though the codebase for Thunder Fish pushed way past the size of my previous HTML games. Familiarity is key for jams, and it definitely pays off in the ability to continue grinding out features.
Learned: Yet again, I completely failed to allocate time for audio. Fortunately, I was already in the Jam category for this one, so I pulled some free music from NGXmusical in the last hour. Sound effects could have improved the feel even further, though.
You can play The Legend of the Thunder Fish on the web!
Also some of the other Dare games, here: Ludum Dare 29.
