I recommend playing the game before reading this:

Play the game

Information

• Start: 11:30 AM (5:30 AM EST)
• End: 3 AM (9 PM EST)
• Time spend sleeping: 11 hours
• Software used: Sublime Text, LÖVE, Aseprite, Pixitracker, bfxr

The idea

I had to think for a long time before finally coming up with an idea. But then it suddenly popped into my mind. I thought back to a flower parade float. You can take a look at it here on Youtube. When I was standing in the audience looking at it, I felt fear. They made the mood so strong, that I feared for them being captured. I took that as inspiration and started making my game.

The good

• Art

It was the first time I used Aseprite for Ludum Dare, and it is such a great tool. It does exactly what I want. So making the art, although it’s not the best, went alright.

• The idea

I personally think I succeeded again in coming up with an innovative, and fun concept. The idea had room for potential that I could come up with while making the game.

• Programming

I don’t think there was any bug that cost me more than 15 minutes of my time. Although the source code is one big mess, I managed to find my way through it. Luckily you only have to look at it for 2 days straight.

The bad

• Gameplay

You could hug your daughter, and feed the baby, that was it. I needed a reason for you to walk from left to right and back. But with everything I could come up with, I had this argument for myself: “Then why wouldn’t the daughter stand on the right side?”. I solved it by adding the lights coming from the floor, which you weren’t allowed to be seen by (although this is actually not in the game, people still think it’s dangerous so they sort of added that feature by themselves). The ‘getting food’ was a perfect solution. You take the risk of the guy coming while you’re taking food, you need to let your daughter hold the baby, you need to feed your daughter. It added a lot of gameplay. So even though it sounds as if that all went right, it was something I had a lot of trouble with making the game.

• Balancing

Never had I so much trouble with balancing a game. It kept being too hard, I kept lowering the speed of how fast the baby or daughter cries, and upped the time of how fast the man comes to inspect. In the end I think I made it too easy, but that might be because I made the game. Most still seem to have trouble finishing the game their first or second try. Balancing cost me quite some time, and it’s the reason why the intro and menu are so shitty.

• Audio

I can’t make music or sound effects, and I felt that 8-bit sounds wouldn’t do its justice. In the end my brother told me to do a heartbeat, which worked out pretty nicely. It reminded me Eniko’s game from previous Ludum Dare, No way out. I felt like stealing it even though I didn’t took it from there. But if a single feature of another game makes your game at its best, then why not use it? In the end I think the audio gives some nice mood.

The ugly

• The baby

If you’ve played the game, you might have seen what can happen to the baby. Now you might think: Sheepolution, what were you thinking in your sick mind while you decided to put that in your game? Well, I got it from the movie The Pianist. In the movie a woman cries. A man explain she’s crying because the police was searching their house when they baby started crying, she suffocated the baby, but it was too late, they were already caught. I thought this would fit perfectly in my game. I hoped it would make people skip a heartbeat when they suddenly see the option in the menu. The scene of the movie can be found here: At 0:45:40

I hope you enjoy(ed) playing In Hiding. I think it’s a kind of game I won’t be making again soon.

Cheers!