What’s up Ludum Daree’s and Darers. This is my second time participating in this or any jam. I took a stab at LD30 earlier this year, and while I didn’t get too far beyond the concept stage, it was a great learning experience. This time around I’m opting to try out an Actionscript engine for a bit more ease of use (fumbled around with Unity last time), namely Adam Atomic’s Flixel. The idea I have this time around is a solid one, though I’m not terribly confident that I can pull it off in time. That’s a big part of why I’m writing this blog post to put the idea out there if nothing else. So let’s get into it.
Entire Game on One Screen
I, like many of you, was rooting hard for Snowman with a Fez. I’d had some ideas percolating over the last few days for it and really thought it was a shoe-in. Honestly, though, I’m really happy with this theme. For one, it made me discard any pre-jam thoughts I had and start fresh. For another, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about it is limitations. All on ONE screen? So, basically Centipede? The original Mario Bros? There’s no room for scrolling levels, for deception and trickery just beyond the pane of your window. I may be quite new to this game jam scene, but I think there’s a ton of value in a theme that forces you out of your creative comfort zone.
I thought on it a bit last night while watching the Game Awards. I decided pretty early on that simply implementing the theme on a technical level (building whatever game I wanted with a single screen level) wasn’t how I wanted to tackle this. I wanted to try and get a little meta with the idea of “one screen”. It turns out all the inspiration I needed for that was sitting right on my desk.
This is my office. As you can see, I’m a multi-screen kind of person. I currently have a laptop, second monitor, tablet, iphone, 3DS, and PSP all scattered about my desk. Generally no less than three of them are in active use. In thinking about the theme, I was already imagining a screen within the game window that the game itself takes place on. From there, I thought, “what if the game played across the screens on my desk?”
If you can’t tell from my excellent artistic and photographic skills, here is a platforming level playing out from the top left corner of my laptop screen to the bottom right, ending on my tablet. It even takes a brief dip down into smart phone land on the way. Now, mind you, this isn’t any kind of final level design. I guess you could call it concept art. You get the point. But…there’s still a problem isn’t there?
The theme specifically says “Entire game on one screen.” Well that’s where the not-GameBoy on the right comes in. My initial idea was to be playing a fairly simple game on a screen that was constantly moving and rotating on your screen. Here, it’s a little different. The level will always be displayed across the multiple screens, but the player can only be seen inside the level through the GameBoy screen, which the player controls with a mouse. So, the character is to be controlled by keyboard keys, while the player moves the GameBoy screen around the level to see them.
So, the game is always on one screen (the player’s), while playing across multiple screens (my fake desk top), while only actually playable on one screen (the GameBoy). Make sense?
Anyway, that’s it for now. Next I suppose I need some real level design, and, well, actually making any of this work! I’d love to hear any feedback, comments, or suggestions. Thanks for reading!
– Mike
Tags: #LD31 #LDJAM #LudumDare #GameDev #OneScreen
