While I was able to produce something playable this Ludum Dare, it was not one of my favorites. I failed to manage the time and scope of my project. As a result my entry falls far short of my goal.
When the theme was announced I brainstormed three ideas:
1) A 2d platformer where the player shifts between two parallel planes of existence. By touching an enemy the player is either kills it or is killed by it depending on if the player is in the correct plane.
2) A top down tower defense game where monsters appear through portals (to connected worlds). The player needs to survive a set period of time.
3) A 3d platformer where in a surreal floating dream scape. The player would collect journal pages as they explore the 3d level.
I went with the third one, in part because I had been wanting to do a game like this for a while, but also because I would not have to program enemies. The collectable Journal pages would allow me to add some flavor to the world and do some basic tutorial stuff.
After settling on a concept I dreamed up a feature list that included Momentum based air movement, bouncy blocks, moving platforms, and wind patterns. The wind patterns were going to be the main feature of this game, allowing the player to rise on up currents and glide about the level. I spent a lot of time implementing the wind system and the particle effects that the player would use to visualize it.
I spent Friday night programming the movement, platforms, and wind system. I planned on having the core game play done by Saturday morning. Then I could spend all of Saturday afternoon doing art. Sunday would be reserved for making levels. The schedule began to slip when I spent a good chunk of Saturday refining the wind system and making the journal/portal code. I finished up the level art assets Saturday night on schedule. When I awoke Sunday I felt the need to mess around with the code some more. The first real level I had made was behaving oddly, and I had to go back and fix several bugs. I didn’t get to proper level creation until 4 hours before contest end.
Ultimately I managed to make two levels that would instruct the player in how to use the jumping, double jumping and moving platforms. I had wanted to make 1 level for each of the game features. As the player mastered each feature they would be able to explore more of the central hub level and discover more levels and journal entries.
What went Right:
* I used tools I was very familiar with: Unity3D, GIMP, and Blender. I was able to bash out the core of my game play and art in very little time.
* Picked an idea that involved dynamic movement (one of my favorite things to program)
* I kept my art style consistent and did not try and steal textures from google image search.
What Went Wrong:
* Did not allocate enough time for level design.
* Did too much playtesting on a non level.
* Focused too heavily on features that would never be implemented.
Conclusions:
I managed to produce a good prototype for a game concept that has been lurking in the back of my head for ages. For games like this movement dynamics and level design are make or break the experience. I focused too heavily on the first and neglected the second.