So I hope you had a good Christmas !

I take the time before the new year to write a little post mortem about my entry : Villan Glance

I have to say that in the beginning I was a bit annoyed by the theme YOU ARE THE VILLAIN, that seems a bit too classic, I mean in a way there would be a lot of game where you simply play the bad guy. So I tried to be in the theme not only with the scenaristic side. I thank about different things, but this time I decided to follow my own advice about short game jams : Make something simple and fun.

So I suppose that I thank what a true villain migh feel in this bad work. I realized that in a crowd the villain is alone against his victims, he has to be discreet and quick in his task. He has to work with the suspicion of his peers, and with his own guilt which can eventually make him spotted. In the game I used all these elements and combined them in a stealth-like game that ask you to look at the view of your future victims, and be careful about the shot noise you make.

The concept is pretty simple, kill all your peers without being spotted. You’re spotted if when you shot a dude in the head another dude is looking at you. The suspicion of a dude increase if he “hears” a gun shot, in fact if he is in the zone around you when you shot. I used view angle and circle area as obvious zone feedback. The red face feedback shows who is more or less suspicious, and give the player a direct indication about who must be wary. Indeed, the most suspicious has the largest angle of view, that increase the chance to be catch. The global suspicion (sum of each suspicion  amount) increase the rotation speed of each dude, like if they were like “hey, what, behind me ? no, here ? what was that ? what ?”. And if you are not a discrete villain, you become darker and darker, like if the rumors about your strange behaviour make you more suspectable (and that’s the case, the dudes will tend to walk to your position if you seem dark, to keep you in their view). All that to say that I wanted some clear basic feedback so the player would understand a bit more what the fuck is happening. In fact it still be a bit complicated at the beginning, but ok it’s not as random as my previous ludum dare entry =3

Before coding hard the body and balancing things I suppose that I wanted to test the mood, and I made and coded the particles and the death animation. That is something I’m very proud about, and certainly the funniest thing in the game, to the point that sometimes I just want to be catch to watch the result (or maybe I just want to be arrested to pay for my crimes lol). And I had gun and splash noises, and screen wizz and all. I’m pretty sure that all these polishes (ok I made them before completing the code but they are) play a huge role in the mood and fun of the game.

I coded a graph that show the evolution of the guilt and suspicions at the end of a game, but finally it found it not relevant for the player. I tried to make a score which depend of the discretion of the player and number of shots plus the time, but finally it was not very clear and I only keep the time score.

If I had more time and motivation, I could add more feature like obstacle, paranoid policemen or other villains, and sure a multiplayer mode which would be funny ! Anyway I’m quite happy with the result, this Ludum Dare was great for me.

I have to insist one more time, we should try to make something simple, but which works and is playfull ok, and make it someting good looking, visually fun, and powerfull in the atmosphere side. I mean we hardly have the necessary time to do anything too complex.  So FOCUS AND POLISH !

I had lots of encouraging comments for Villain Glance, and I am truly grateful !

Have a good New Year and take care of yourself, awesome people !

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2012 at 10:42 am and is filed under LD #25. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.