Quick question: So far, I'm fully in the Compo, but I'm working with Unity 2D and I'm wondering if using shaders I have from the Asset Store would be against the rules?
On the one hand, they're sort of art assets I didn't personally make, on the other they're basic shader code I had from before the jam began.
Anyone dealt with this before? What was the outcome?
I started Ludum Dare 48 planning to enter the Compo, but wound up having too many issues on Sunday night to get in on time, so I switched to a Jam submission. What I ended up submitting was Nadiria - A game about SCUBA diving into a fictional trench for treasure, but that's not what I started out making.
My initial plan was to have two characters who would be moving deeper into their respective environments in parallel, with the player controlling them one-at-a-time to open up paths for one another. One of those characters and environments became Nadiria - the diver. The other character was a miner, who would be digging down through dirt in search of diamonds, and who could use his shovel to defeat enemies (moles and bats mostly), and would be able to loosen rocks to drop on opponents for the diver, who has no combat abilities.
It became apparent to me pretty quickly that I had nowhere near enough time to do both of these implementations by myself, and although I had gone through making the Miner's animations, after playing my first short prototype of Nadiria I elected to scrap the land-dwelling half of the game. I did have some fun with the character's design, though:
run cycle
digging
jumping
Ultimately I felt that the floaty movement and dashing in Nadiria was more fun to work with, and I'm happy with where it wound up. It's nowhere near refined as a game, but I think it's a decent jumping off point should I choose to continue with it.
When I settled on using the Diver, I had a very specific thought: I wanted to make the inverse of Celeste. Celeste is about climbing a mountain, Nadiria is about diving into a trench; Celeste feature fast and precise jumping and climbing, Nadiria features slower, floaty precision, with emphasis on managing momentum; Celeste is an amazing game with many accolades, Nadiria is a game.
My only real regret surrounds level design, and that I didn't leave enough time to really firm up the shape of the trench before the submission deadline. I hope if anyone reads this, that you'll try Nadiria and give it a rating, but more importantly that you had fun working on the jam and that you enjoy yourself playing the games now.
In conclusion, here are some gifs of the diver:
floating
swimming
dashing
defeat
If you like moody games about swimming to the bottom of the ocean, Nadiria is perfect for you!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/nadiria
I've implemented an Android build and the APK is available on the Nadiria itch page!
Don't forget to review and comment on Nadiria's jam page!
Get diving for the bottom of the trench on Android now!
Nadiria is a precision sidescroller, dive to the bottom of the Nadiria trench in search of treasure!
There's only one goal - dive deeper!
Nadiria is a precision sidescroller, dive to the bottom of the Nadiria trench in search of treasure!
There's only one goal - dive deeper!
First evening is over, going to get some shut-eye and finish up the mechanics for my entry "A Blink in the Night" in the morning. Initially I couldn't really think of what I'd like to do with the theme, and I tried a lot of abstract interpretations while brainstorming before settling on a fairly direct reading that I think will put a fun spin on things.
As you can see here, every ten second the sun rises or sets. There are a couple of cameras the player can use that will be explained in a future post, and some small lamps turn on after it starts getting dark out. I'm feeling good about what I have and what I've yet to add!
Short days:
I spent so much time messing around with various animation solutions and root motion, which is a frequent time sink for me because I really like for things to be "just so", and so I don't have anywhere close to what I wanted for a submission. At the same time I had a lot of fun screwing around with animations and applying root motion so I'm calling it a net win whatever the outcome.
In any event, doing so much in such a short time has made me feel much better about returning to my longer-term projects after this. The deadline of the jam makes it so much more essential to be decisive and to use your existing knowledge and skills that afterwards I feel so much more capable than I have in a while.
Long story short, jam == fun even without finishing!