Time for my wrap-up for LD30. This was my second LD, and I have to say first and foremost, this one was much more enjoyable for me. Things were very confusing and almost frustrating the first time around. Now that I’m familiar with both the site and the competition itself, things came much more natural this round. My entry is called ‘WithU’, and is the story of a lost boy and his deceased grandfather.

Setup via the Game window

I spent a lot more time with both my notebook and my pillow this time around; that is to say I spent a lot more time designing and I slept pretty consistently. Both of these worked out well.

My original plan was, of course, actual planets. This was thrown out almost immediately:

After a lot more doodling in the notebook, my next idea was a boy and a girl who fall in love but are separated by a void. You must help the boy and girl work together via a split-screen setup so they can be together. Here is my setup for that idea:

Screenshot of my Unity3D setup from earlier

Next, I decided to try out a first-person view and mechanic. It too was short-lived:

Back to the notebook! Finally, I landed on an idea that really inspired me. The plan was to swap the girl out for the boy’s late grandfather, and using my cube layout from my previous idea, it wasn’t long before I felt like I had something.

Setup via the Unity Scene view

After landing on the boy/grandfather idea, the new mechanic and map started coming together pretty quickly.  A big help was using a cube of 1x1x1 alongside Unity3D’s built in snapping system… which allowed me to duplicate and place the cubes really quickly.  There wasn’t enough time left to design an entire game around this mechanic, so I settled on a few puzzles and added the optional “side quest” of collecting coins.

This game is mostly narrative and environment, although there is one puzzle in particular that I’m pretty proud of.  To see it, and more of the game itself, you’ll have to play!

WithU: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=35774