I completed a playable game for my first LD!

I have looked at a few Builds for Linux already and none of them ran. Notes below about how to make sure it will run on Linux:

Export as a Universal (x86 + x86_64 (Universal) so it can be played on both 32 bit and 64 bit OS versions. Also make sure to also have the data folder in the package.

First off, this is my first public game and 4-5th in Unity (game engine) and less then 10 over all (I did some in Apple Basic and C/C++ in school). I would say the game would fall into the 3D puzzle/platformer genre.

The time limit really helped with focus and the ability to go... Good enough, need to move on... Got more done in my game then I would.

I learned what a Foley Artist is and even managed to make some sound effects for my game. I found that while I can unwrap a UV in Blender and move the sections around on the Image, I couldn't figure out how to paint it. So my character ended up with out a face (one of those, good enough, need to move on moments).

The coding aspects of the game felt I did ok with. I did ok with making some basic 3d objects, etc.

Where I had trouble - IE where I learned something - I sorely underestimated the time it takes to actually BUILD/Layout a level. I managed a tutorial level, a game level, and a 'ending' level. - PREFABS, PREFABS, PREFABS - I ended up having time to add some sound & particle effects. The item I had prefabed, took a few minutes to update. The items that I didn't........ not so nice. This was actually part of my driving factor for not trying to create any more levels. To much time to make things consistent. - More time for playtesting. After I had the game playable, my kids asked to try the game... and I found some of the jumping puzzles were harder then intended. So I went and adjusted the character's jump slightly. This created the unexpected situation of the character could now make jumps that it wasn't expected to be able to make (IE you can jump right past most of the puzzles now).

Where I was happy with my results - I was able to make some basic tiles and import them into Unity and build levels out of them. - Coding triggers and reactions/etc.
- modeling and animating a basic character

What I would have done different with what I know now - PREFABS - see above - More varied & larger tiles to build the world with - only having 1x1 tiles, takes some time to build with - Perhaps changed to a 3rd person over the shoulder with camera control instead of a fixed camera - I had to change some puzzles to deal with camera angle issues.

My take away - I am thankful to Quill18 for posting his YouTube video that amounted to 'just do it, even if the best you can do is pong, it is worth it' x10 times over - I am glad I did this, It was the first time in a while that I woke up before my alarm clock mentally going 'is it time yet?'

Unfortunately there isn't a platform filter to help find games that are either web playable or have a Linux build, I am asking for you to help out.

Please post your games (or games you have found and like) with either Web or Linux builds below, so us Linux gamers can try out your games

One adendum: If you are exporting Linux for this, make sure you do a Universal build (some people are doing the 32bit Unity version only which us 64bit OS users can't play)

while you are at it, feel free to check out my multi-platform game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/glade-in-the-sky

Putting out an informal poll / feedback request Blob Shadows:

First the question (TL:DR version):

3D Playformers - Are Blob Shadows a Necessary Affordance?

What brought up the question:

In the feed back on my game, I had some mixed responses about perspective issues and lack of shadows. In doing some research I found that the fastest two default settings in the unity launcher disable shadows (ouch), this probably explained why I got mixed responses about shadows existing. Second, I did some searching and found out about Blob Shadows for 3d playformers. Always having a shadow projected directly below the character (IE from a directly overhead light source), seems to be an common affordance. Blob shadows originally came out of the limitations of hardware and we can now get much more accurate shadows. But that leads to the question, (in modern games) Are Blob Shadows a Necessary affordance?

Thanks for any thoughts and feed back you may have on this question.

As seems the custom, you can check out the game here: Glade in the Sky

To see the difference (shadows/no shadows) try both fastest and simple or higher graphics quality

What was my goal?

An action/adventure game focused on exploration and puzzle solving using procedural generation of maps for replay ability.

What went right?

• Procedural Generation of map is working well.
  
  • Map is a fully connected maze with no loops (I didn't want to deal with loops this time around due some complexities that they would create for some of my planned items).
  • Enemy placement increases the farther from the start.
  • Goal object (the artifact) is placed in the farthest away room from the start point (or one of the tied distance rooms).
• Character control
  • I created a custom character controller on top of a rigidbody2d and worked out making the movement responsive and 'tight' so you didn't slide after letting go of movement controls.
• Enemy attacks
  • enemy attacks feel satisfying even with the lack of animations/placeholder art with how they lurch at the character with sound, bound off the character then pause for a second before doing anything.

What went wrong?

• Time
  • I didn't over scope so bad this time, but didn't account for being in recovery from surgery. I probably lost 4-8 hours worth of time over what I could have put in if I was at 100%. This cost me getting in non-placeholder art for the Player and Enemies (and other things, but that was probably the biggest loss).
  • I ended up leaving out a few features that I think would have helped the game :(
    • Locked doors & keys
    • Energy Drops
    • Line of Sight Occlusion - so you can't see through walls
    • Ground Art
    • More Enemy types
    • More Room Tiles
• not watching Vlambeer's art of screen shake before the weekend
  • I didn't realize it was about so much more then screenshake, some of what was there would have really helped and taken basically moments to add
• Scale of character/rooms/screen.
  • game felt slower then I would have liked, but given the room/screen size, going faster would have given very little 'vision' time.
• Sound levels
  • I may be outside the normal and like my music quiet and in the background, clearly below the SFX, however feedback seems to indicate that many people like them more even. Solution would be a level slider for both in a menu, so that each player can get levels they like.

What Lesson(s) did I learn?

• 'Under the hood' game mechanics/code doesn't get high ratings... simple games well polished do
  • My post Jam version (6-8 extra hours doing mostly polish) looks like a completely different game.
• Art takes me a lot of time
  • I tried 2d instead of 3d this time to hopefully save on art time. I am not sure if it payed off or not.
  • Practicing for my next Game jam probably needs to be more about art/graphics stuff then programming.
• Vlambeer's 4:44 rule has some good merit, especially given my art skills.
• Some people enjoy Mazes, some don't

What is my goal for next time?

• Scoping a game that I can complete '100%' in the game jam time frame
• Keep working on finding the type of game I like (and fits in scope)

Artifact Dive

I am looking for a few more games to play and rate this afternoon. If you would like me to play and rate your game, please link below. Limitations - has to be a Linux or Web game. If you used unity for native builds, you will have needed to do the 64 bit or Universal exports.

You can find my game here and post mortem links below - Artifact Dive - Artifact Dive Post Mortem

Thanks to Zack West @zwrawr (Unfortunately I couldn't find his game) who created some wonderful live charts of our rating progress, you can see some examples of his charts below.

Keep up the good work: playing, rating, and leaving quality feedback. Remember if you need ratings, the best way to get them is to get out and play, rate, and leave quality feedback. The sorting algorithm does a really good job!

I would love to see another 30% ranked by the end of the weekend. I put that out as a challenge to everyone. I believe the community can make it happen.

Current Ranked Percentage

Burn Down Chart

another 4.4% of games are ranked from yesterday!

Thanks to Zack West @zwrawr (Unfortunately I couldn't find his game) who created some wonderful live charts of our rating progress, you can see some examples of his charts below.

Keep up the good work: playing, rating, and leaving quality feedback. Remember if you need ratings, the best way to get them is to get out and play, rate, and leave quality feedback. The sorting algorithm does a really good job!

Current Ranked Percentage

Burn Down Chart

another 3% of games are ranked from yesterday!

Thanks to Zack West @zwrawr who created some wonderful live charts of our rating progress, you can see some examples of his charts below.

Keep up the good work: playing, rating, and leaving quality feedback. Remember if you need ratings, the best way to get them is to get out and play, rate, and leave quality feedback. The sorting algorithm does a really good job!

Current Ranked Percentage

Burn Down Chart

Thanks to Zack West @zwrawr who created some wonderful live charts of our rating progress, you can see some examples of his charts below.

Keep up the good work: playing, rating, and leaving quality feedback. Remember if you need ratings, the best way to get them is to get out and play, rate, and leave quality feedback. The sorting algorithm does a really good job!

Current Ranked Percentage

Burn Down Chart

I have been using my Postmortem to collect all my thoughts about what went well and what didn't go so well. One thing that became very evident from the feedback was that Art/polish makes a massive difference in the reception of a game. I took some time after the jam (6-8 hours) to do some Art/polish. Those few changes made the game into almost a completely different game even though the base mechanics are exactly the same. You can see the difference below.

So have you had any similar experiences?

Jam Version

Post Jam Version

If you want to play the before and after, you can find them here: Artifact Dive (Post Jam is in the downloads on the itch.io page)

edit -> Thanks for the positive comments. I didn't mean to sound so overly depressed by my scores. Also updated main post with the details from what I found from the the ensuing discussions.

At first I thought I did worse in ever category (% based on rating vs total compo submissions - higher is better)

Then I recalculated based on some feedback (% based on rating vs calculated compo submissions - higher is better)

Then I got the actual numbers I needed to get exact stuff (% based on rating vs total ratings by category - compo submissions - higher is better)

Can't say that I disagree with the ratings. 'Juice' plays way more into a well received game then the code that can't be seen. I spend some extra time putting on the polish that the game was missing a few days after the jam and I can even hardly tell that it is the same game.

First a game-play video (max score, not quite a perfect run): https://youtu.be/PnWi5kkAguo

What was my goal?

Make something in less then 12 hours that could be called a game.

What went right?

• I managed to make a complete game with a few mechanics in the time given
• I managed to implement things from Vlambeer’s art of screen, which made the game have more 'feels'/'Juice'. This is to the point that I almost scrapped the game due to how 'boring' it was before I started adding stuff.

What went wrong?

• No music.
• Apparently my background was moving to fast and was bury
• Didn't get the UI menus to work with the controller

What Lesson(s) did I learn?

• Fast moving backgrounds make some people's eyes hurt
• UI/feedback quality - multiple people commented about not being able quickly tell their status.
• Art is still a big deal on how people experience the game.
• Audio feedback can go from 'helpful' to annoying really quick

What are my goals for next time?

• Create a (modular) Menu system
• Create a working options Menu (sound level choices/etc, maybe even input rebinding)
• Figure out how to make my Menus work with controller input
• Code up some code modules to cover the basics
• Learn GOAP AI
• Find an art style that I can do well and fast (maybe?)

Spatium Calorem

I only had about 12 hours to put into LD40. I made my focus something I could do quickly and tried to focus on finding that 'fun factor.' I seem to have found it (at least compared to my prior games).

• overall -> slowly going up, LD39 took a dip because I didn't get very good graphics going
• Fun -> up, up, up!!!!
• Innovation -> -shrug- not sure what makes thing innovative
• Theme -> I guess I have got better at giving the feeling of the theme..
• graphics -> oddly my 3D modeling skills must be better then my 2D drawing skills... that or 3D just gets better votes in this category. The dip on LD39 was me not having time to do actually graphics and submitted with place holder graphics
• audio -> I think the 'your overheating' sound hurt me bad on LD40 (feedback said it was anoying).

Looking forward to to next LD!

1. Really wish that some basic duplication checks were done before the list was generated
2. "Procedural Generation" - I like the idea, but it would exclude many newer people or even those without the needed background. Need to think about everyone being able to make a game.
3. Is it a thing to try to get passed a NSFWish type theme?
4. More generic > hyper specific.. example - the elements; the 4 elements; fire, water, earth & air. The more generic covers the specific but allows more options.

I think I have all the gameplay mechanics working. Level 1/Tutorial done.

Next will be some 3d models, more levels, Main Menu, & Level Select... then publish.

https://youtu.be/ryYO16rWZgk

What do you get when you cross a 2D Platformer, a FPS, and a Puzzle game?

You get Prototypes and Dust, a LD41 Compo Entry.

Collect all 5 collectibles across 5 levels!

I am doing a challenge to do 12 Games in 12 Weeks.

You can join in or follow along here:

https://12games12weeks.blogspot.com/

Looking forward to LD42. Been getting some practice in from my 12 games in 12 weeks challenge. Looking forward to putting the practice to use!