The Idea

Ludum Dare 32 theme was ‘An Unconventional Weapon’. For the first time in ages I was reasonably prepared and had enough free time to tackle the project. After short deliberation, I have decided that my angle will be ‘the entire world is my weapon’. As you move through the level, you will encounter different enemies that you will lure to their deaths by jumping off the bridges, getting hit by bullets or dying under pistons.

At first the enemy attacked you instantly, but it just didn’t feel good. Then I added a delay, but it was hard to notice that the enemy is about to attack you. So, as I was recently playing with Unity 5’s UI, I decided to use it for a popup warning, Metal Gear Solid style.

Now, platformer is the universal language of gaming. Everybody played Super Mario Bros or Sonic. Kids love Rayman and people with too much sanity on their hands torture themselves with I Wanna Be The Guy. And for some weird reason I’ve never created a proper platformer in my life. So, this would be my chance.

The game that inspired me, which might seem surprising who has seen the final version, was Megaman X. The wallslides and walljumps are the idea I lifted from Megaman. I have never played Super Meat Boy before this Ludum Dare weekend, just seen it played on the youtubes. But as I was watching youtube videos on platforming games for inspiration, SMB got stuck in my mind. The physics seemed just perfect, the entire gameplay was fluid and natural. So much so that I’ve bought SMB and spent some part of the day playing the game and trying to figure out what I loved about it.

And that’s where the SMB vibe started overpowering any other influences. Instead of coding I spent couple hours trying to get A+ scores and get all the bandages. When I finally managed to tear myself away from the game, I knew what I wanted. But first, I needed to overcome a really weird Unity problem. You see, when one puts couple tiles made from Box Collider 2D next to each other and slide another box collider on the surface, it tends to get stuck on the edges. However, there is a solution for this: instead of using Box Collider, use four Edge Colliders. For some weird reason this works! So, let’s do the dissection now.

The Bad

1) Scope. Although I know how to limit myself to small games, and frequently make one day projects, I wanted to make something really great with this one. My game was supposed to have one act for each stage of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), each of which was supposed to contain 20 levels, one bossfight and a cutscene. And this was supposed to be a Compo entry. Unfortunately, at the end of Day 2 I barely had the basic gameplay elements and one level.
2) Difficulty. This might seem weird, but difficulty was a major problem. I wanted a slow progression from really easy, tutorial levels to hard, final levels. Unfortunately, as the deadline was nearing, I wanted to ramp up the difficulty. The only problem was, each level being harder meant longer and longer time required to test it, which meant that I would have less time for the next level, which meant I had to ramp difficulty faster.
3) The THEME. Which is somewhat important thing with Ludum Dare entries. The fact that I wanted the game to be so big and polished costed me tons of time. Which meant that my dreamt up ideas about multiple ways of killing enemies and focusing on using world as your weapon had to take a distant second place.
4) Physics. While I may like the way the player controls, I read over and over again in the comments that it’s way too slippery. Creation of the content took too much time, I’ve literally upload the build couple minutes before the submission hour end, no time for end user tests. What I should do was have people playing it as I was developing. Next time maybe.
5) Cutscenes. The cutscenes I’ve written down earlier on a story board. And good thing, too, because everything was implemented in code by jumping
6) Audio. I really wanted to not make a dry, soundless game this time. I’ve spent entire week trying to recall music creation skills and making some chiptunes. And yet, when the time came, I didn’t have time enough to add the music. Shame. Maybe next time.

The Good

1) Intro. After creating the exclamation mark notice thing, I thought – why not use only that for entire conversation? And managed (or so I think) to tell a story without using even one word.
2) Gameplay. I actually love it! Maybe it’s hard, maybe it’s annoying, but holy shit – I enjoy playing it. Even today I spent like an hour during writing this text to try and finish the game in one go. Got to second-to-last obstacle on level 9 😉
3) Completion. The game while missing some content and maybe options, is a full, proper game. It’s got an intro, it’s got couple fully tested, in my opinion coherently designed, levels (I especially enjoy the 10th level – the Doctor’s mansion). Hell, there even is an outro (but as opposed to the intro, I’m not going to ever post it anywhere. Maybe one day somebody will get there, and he’ll be rewarded ;). Oh, and the game even times you, so there’s speed run possibility 😉
4) Styling. I used squares as temporary standins for some characters, but, well, they grew on me, so I’ve just tweened them , thrown couple particle effects in, and they really became ‘alive’
5) Tile graphics. At first I wanted to go for really complex, pretty tiles. That would however take me ages (I can do some tile art, but I’m not a fast artist). I decided to draw really shabby silly tiles, but keep true to the old rule of making three tiles of each type and make the variety pick up the slack. And they did so brilliantly. So much so that people actually said that it looks pretty. Which is not something I expected.

The End

All in all, I’m really happy with the outcome. Maybe not as a Ludum Dare entry, but as a game on its own. I’ve tackled a genre that I never could beat, and I think that I’ve managed to do so succesfully. Maybe next time I’ll be able to create something better. So, if you haven’t seen it, here’s my game:

GRIEF