Hello there townsfolk!
I hope many of you have already played my Ludum Dare 28 entry, Pete, The Petard. Its a fun little game, featuring a dedicated Petard who does what petards are supposed to do, explode! To complete his missions, he has to destroy enemy supplies and eliminate the guards and do all of it in one go! Because you know, you only get one…
Use of petards in games (clash of clans, age of empires)
Petards are not a new thing in gaming, i am sure you have seem them in real time strategy games and a few shooters too.
The Original Idea
The first idea I thought of was a puzzle platform game where the player gets one bomb and the level has multiple enemies. The trick was that the bomb could only kill a limited number of enemies. All those who remained had to be killed by other means using the level elements or dragged together so that you could kill many enemies with one bomb.
When the development started, one thing led to another and the next thing i knew, i was blowing myself up and winning castles for my king!
Art Style
I wanted the world and the characters to look as cartoony as possible. The theme of the game was grim, so pulling it off as a fun game required a concoction of cute and silly.
I started with the characters. Pete the Petard had to be a simple guy, ordinarily dressed with nothing special about his appearance and not too smart either. What would a low paid 100% expendable soldier’s uniform look like, i think it would be entirely made of brown rug, head to toe. Helmet? Nah it’s not going to help him anyway. Pete takes his work seriously, his cheap uniform is clean and ironed. Is he bald under the cap? Oh well that.. he doesn’t want you to know.
The bomb he carries is high-spirited, so very eager to go boom!
The enemies, that is the royal Guards are better looking, with fancy uniforms and sharp weapons. While making the characters, i kept in mind to keep them symmetrical following primitive shapes.. the human mind loves basic symmetries 
I did not have time to add as many details to the game world as i wanted, but i still managed to make small props like grass types, flags, decorative shields, meteor hammers etc which i added in different levels to add variety.
Level Design
Now an artist is not something i call myself, so one of the things i was happy to be able to accomplish in this Jam was total Tile-based level design. I drew most of the tiles separately in 64*64 grids (later downsized to 32*32) and imported them as tile-sets. The Parallax backgrounds required a little more work.
Level Design using tiles and objects
Each level has been made through tile assembly and parallax backgrounds, and works pretty well for that.
Gameplay
Pete can be controlled by arrow keys for movement and jump. Based on players’ feedback i believe the controls need some fine-tuning as Pete moves too much on light keystrokes which makes it tough for him to land on tricky spots. Another complaint was that the general physics was somewhat ‘light’ and bulk of a few objects was not as it was supposed to be.
These are all polish and tuning problems that i will fix post Ludum.
A design flaw as I would call it, is that it’s tough to understand in these small levels as to which objects are in vicinity of Pete’s bomb. The exact bomb range is hard to determine and is unforgiving. One would think one is in the range of an object but as it turns out, the target would be marginally missed by a few pixels. Click the gif to understand the issue better.
This is something that needs more than just tuning. I think i will make a system where the objects in the range of Pete’s bomb have some kind of visual cue, so that the player can have a better idea about the beginning of the chain reaction.
Final words
I had a great time creating this game, and the response was overwhelming. Next Ludum, i plan to be more focused and again make something which is fun and worthwhile. Those of you who liked the project, the source is attached (poke me if the link doesn’t work). If you add more levels and mechanics, i’d love to play them! Keep learning, keep making games, be awesome!
For those of you who played Barrel Roll (Ultra!), thanks for your kind words and reviews. This game started of as a reverse DK, and I wanted to keep the vibe going as much as I could. I maintained the game in a way that players can get where the inspirations is coming from, and still be entertained. The game kind of becomes a Mario zombie carnival later and its great fun!
The initial plan was to have a progression based action game. You start alone. Then you get more monkeys to join the squad. They are supposed to add threat as the rolling barrels can harm you too, but can also be helpful because if you escape, they will most likely explode on a plumber. Then there was introduction to different barrel types, enemy types etc etc.
