I'm really glad I participated in Ludum Dare this go round, because the game I submitted for this event has to be the greatest entry I've made yet. Back during Ludum Dare 38, I made a game called Super Plumber Man, and everyone who played that really loved it, but they mostly liked it because the game was essentially just a big joke told in game format. However, for this event, I ended up making a really great, serious game.
For the theme, I noticed that a lot of people mixed really gimmicky genres with more basic genres (e.g. dating sims and shmups, card games and rts, fishing and racing, rhythm and platformer, etc.), but for my game, I went with two simpler genres that directly conflict with one another: Shoot 'em ups and Metroidvanias. They directly conflict with each other because Metroidvanias are famous for being very nonlinear games, while Shoot 'em ups tend to be extremely linear, with each level being played in a specific order. The end result of this turned out really well, but had a more metroidvania focus with regard to linearity. The way the game works is that the player is always moving forward and must press a certain button to turn around and explore more of the fortress. Of course, there are several items that the player may pick up in order to advance, however, there's also many chances to sequence break the game. Most of the sequence breaking involves forced damage, and can be heavily luck based, but is still possible. Fun fact: the player only needs to pick up 3 items to complete the game.
My game also happens to be pretty difficult, but it's not unfair. Most of the difficulty seems to be in the first two screens of the game; I've noticed a lot of people seem to have trouble getting past just the first screen, before the metroidvania part of the game presents itself. So in a future update to the game, I'll have to work in re-balancing the beginning, and this a good point to write about in a post-mortem. There are save points scattered throughout the game, and picking up an item will also automatically save the player's progress. The first save point of the game is at the end of the second screen, and after the second screen, there's a quite an abundance of save points.
Overall, I enjoyed making this game the most. I was able to fit in the most amount of content in this game than in any other Ludum Dare event. In fact, the first 42 hours of the game were devoted to designing content; the game just looked like enemies placed on a grey background with grey bricks as walls for most of the game's life. I ended up designing assets last, but the graphics still look pretty decent for what their worth. The sounds also were generated within the final hour of development time, so there wasn't much time for me to think about how they should sound. The only main asset that wasn't created in the final hours was the game's music. I ended up making a eight measure ambiatic piece during the first day, when I felt most inspired to make a song. I wanted to create more music, but I just couldn't think of how I wanted the rest of the music to sound, and I thought the game sounded fine enough with its one song.
Anyhow, let me just wrap this up by saying that if you enjoy Shoot 'em ups or Metroidvanias, then you should try out Gradioid!
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*I also just want to mention: the placeholder name I had for my game while I was still development was "Really Awesome Game". The URL apparently doesn't change along with your title.
