GBGames

So a lot got done in the final 12 hours of Ludum Dare 50 before the compo deadline.

Just not enough of it.

Disaster City already had the super secret anti-meteor R&D base (modeled off of the NASA Langley Research Center) and some skyscraper buildings. There was a river nearby that I intended to cause floods.

I set about creating the core game loop. Each turn would occur in phases.

There would be an report phase, in which you learn about any new disasters as well as how the previous day went. Then there would be a player command phase, in which you can decide to do various repairs or investments. Then the day would resolve based on what you did and what was going on.

Getting these turn phases in meant I could quickly put together an ending in which the inevitable meteor hits and you lose the game.

Then I created the ability to invest in R&D to prevent it.

Once I did so, I could make a happy ending, in which you successfully divert the meteor.

Then, the real game development needed to happen to make it interesting. Basically, I wanted a lot of disasters to befall the well-named city that you needed to spend your time and resources on instead of spamming the Invest button.

And since I didn’t have much time, I changed priorities to get the monster attack in sooner because I really wanted to take advantage of the drawing I had made earlier haphazardly and because I thought it would be more interesting than a flood or fire.

Unfortunately, getting the monster to appear, attack a building a bit, and disappear took a very long time. There were weird bugs, like when the monster teleported back into the water and kept coming at the same building turn after turn but never did anything. It was weird, and there was one defect I couldn’t figure out but somehow seemed to have resolved, and as I didn’t have a lot of time, I had to just hope I truly fixed it.

I changed the scale of the game up since I obviously wasn’t going to get to implement other features of the city that I wanted, like parks that could be destroyed (people leave when there isn’t greenery nearby), fire departments to handle fires, roads that could get destroyed and need repairing, etc. Luckily, I learned from a previous project to create my art at 1024×1024, then scale it down, which made it easier to scale up without it looking wrong. The game and the monster looks slightly more interesting without all of the blank space.

As for meals, I ate a quick lunch of a hamburger with a veggie patty and some condiments, plus some veggie straws, and later as there were only a few hours left in the compo my wife brought me the pasta and salad dinner she made to my office on a tray.

Anyway, right around the deadline, I finally got buildings to get destroyed when attacked enough, and the population loss (uh, the people had to move because their home was destroyed, obviously) reduces your income, which means it is harder to win.

Except not yet, because all you need to do is spam that invest button still, and you can still win by ignoring the destruction.

You have no other meaningful actions yet, so the main dynamic of figuring out your immediate and long-term priorities isn’t in.

About half of my task list got done yesterday, so that’s a big accomplishment on its own. I went from having a title screen and some paper prototypes and notes to having a playable experiment to build upon.

I only blocked off this past weekend to work on it, though. I took today off from the day job to recover from LD, and there is a lot of catching up to do from the weekend in terms of the rest of my life and obligations.

The LD 50 Jam deadline is in 9 hours, and practically speaking I won’t be able to dedicate the entirety to game development.

But what can I do with a few more hours?

I have a monster that successfully attacks buildings. My intention was to have only one monster, as a monster attack was but one disaster possibility out of many, but I could easily make more instead of trying to make random fires or cause flooding.

So maybe there is a meteor coming, and you have to deal with multiple simultaneous monster attacks? Eh.

Giving you the ability to repair buildings that are damaged is my first priority.

Then I can balance the numbers and see if it might be enough to feel like a compelling game.

Then I’ll worry about multiplying monsters.

Oh, I guess I decided I was going to continue working on this game today after all.

Last night I realized that other than a bunch of disconnected notes and a few disconnected images I made, I didn’t have a rough plan in place, and it made it more difficult to move the project forward.

So I made myself a plan. Normally I use a spreadsheet and track weekly tasks, but I think for a 48-hour compo a simple TODO list in a text file works.

Right away, it felt simultaneously daunting (that was a very big task list, and I know I will discover more work as I go) and manageable (just start from the top and work my way down).

So I set to work, first by creating a city layout. It’s simple at the moment, and the most immediate urgency was putting in the river tiles, the ground tiles, and the super secret anti-meteor research and development center. I can put in other buildings (already drawn) later.

But then I thought it would make for a slightly better screenshot if skyscrapers and other buildings were there, too, and I was pleased that the work to add it was almost nothing.

It’s not much now, but I hope to make this a more bustling metropolis soon.

I called it a night around midnight (so technically a morning?), even though I still don’t have game play in, but that’s a bigger lift than I was ready for without sleep.

This morning, I did some light exercise and ate breakfast.

Behold, my peanut butter, cinnamon, raisin, and pickle sandwich.

If you know, you know.

I washed it down with some orange juice (hah, classic Me, amirite?), and since there was only so much left in the bottle, I finished it off.

And my mother-in-law left us some cinnamon rolls, which my wife baked just now.

So before I get back to game development, I did want to give you a pep talk if you need one.

Whether this is your first time participating in Ludum Dare, your first time doing game development, or even if you have been doing game development for a long time, you might look around at what everyone is accomplishing around you and think to yourself, “I don’t belong here.”

And I’m here to tell you that you do, in fact, belong here.

My first LD was #11 in 2008, but my first game jam was Game in a Day in 2005. I remember early on in the 24 hours I had to make a game that I kind of froze up.

I remember feeling like I simultaneously could do it but also that I should stop. It was a weird mix of fear and confusion. I didn’t know why I felt like I should stop other than a vague fear that I shouldn’t even bother, that I didn’t know what I was doing, etc.

I pushed through somehow, and even though the game I made was a very, very far cry from what I set out to do (24 hours isn’t a lot, it turns out), and even though it was buggy, and even though other game developers participating were professionals who made amazing things in those same 24 hours while I was merely an aspiring wannabe, I can say that I participated and I did, in fact, make a game that day.

When I participated in LD #11 a few years later, that same weird fear gripped me shortly after starting, but this time I recognized it. In hindsight, maybe it was Imposter Syndrome? But whatever it was, I successfully ignored it. I managed to successfully make a game and rank relatively highly, too!

And maybe it was because Ludum Dare in 2008 had something like tens of entries rather than thousands, and the community was smaller and more intimate, but there was definitely a home base in that IRC channel of supportive people who made you feel like you belong there just as much as they did. Game in a Day was even smaller, and I wish I could remember the name of the person who gave me advice to cut my scope, but that person also made me feel like I was being taken under his wing, that I was encouraged to be part of that community, too.

We have less than 12 hours to finish a game for the compo. Maybe you’re like me and have a large task list in front of you and you worry you might not finish in time. Maybe you don’t even have an idea yet, or you gave up on one project already. Maybe you see some of the amazing things that people are posting and think, “I am nowhere near that level!”

But don’t compare your efforts and struggles to published, polished efforts of a team of veterans. It is easy to imagine that everyone else knows what they are doing, but you’re only seeing the people willing to post their awesome stuff and not seeing the mistakes, dead-ends, and struggles behind the scenes for them and for many others.

Don’t compare your efforts except to your own previous experiences. And if you have no previous experiences, then consider this your baseline to compare yourself to next time.

And if you feel like you failed Ludum Dare because you couldn’t get it all together in time and publish a game, I’m here to say that after LD 11, I failed to put together a playable game in LD 14 and again in LD 32. There were Mini LDs that I “failed” as well. It was disappointing, but I never felt like I didn’t belong and shouldn’t have made the attempt.

Now, part of that might be cishet white privilege talking, but part of it was that by that point I was part of the Ludum Dare community.

So I want you to know that you belong and are welcome here, too.

After my last post, I continued writing down ideas and creating sketches.

But then I got an invite to participate in a chat with some of the people from the original LD community, and it was fantastic. I had a great time catching up and/or getting to know people, talking about how far things have come, and also expressing gratitude that all of us were still here.

But it also meant I was not working on game development, so I eventually jumped out of that virtual chat and got back to work.

For lunch, I scarfed down some leftover veggie pizza.

I felt like I needed to catch up, so I put together a paper prototype and tried playing through a bit. I did get some insight and realized I was missing something key, but I don’t think I’ve done nearly enough to explore this design.

My wife had taken the kids out for a trip, and she brought me a veggie croissant sandwich and chips for dinner when she returned.

We chatted a bit, then I jumped back into my office.

So paper prototypes are great, but I definitely wanted to get something playable as quickly as possible, which means I needed to start implementing things in digital form.

I put together the title screen earlier, using the concept art as the background. It felt temporary at the time, but now feels likely to become permanent.

I drew a few icons and sprites, but I implemented the HUD first.

You can see the main stats include your money, your population, how many days until the meteor inevitably hits the planet, and how much anti-meteor R&D you’ve got left to do to maybe make things not so inevitable.

Then I wanted to draw the city, so I created a tile-based layout. So far, I only have a river tile to start with.

What’s not obvious in this still-frame is that the water is animated using a flipped version of the water tile. It’s not fancy or time-consuming to make, but it does make it feel more alive as a game.

My intention is for the monster to emerge from the water, as you can see in this mock-up.

There is now less than 24 hours in the compo, and I’m about to lose some of that time to a good night’s sleep. I wish I was further along than I was, but I need to focus on getting that game play in more than ever.

Last night I created some concept art for what I am currently calling Disaster City:

When I went to bed, I thought of how the screen might look and what the player might do.

So this morning, despite wanting to exercise and get some breakfast first, I tried to write down some ideas, but Gizmo decided I shouldn’t be too hasty getting into game development.

So I did some yoga and other light exercise, which is good because my back was bothering me earlier this week but seems fine now.

Then I made breakfast. I fried up some eggs, toasted some waffles, smeared them with peanut butter, sprinkled some cinnamon, put the eggs on top, and had a messy, drippy breakfast of game development champions.

I learned long ago that orange juice is basically full of sugar, so I no longer have a large glass and now make use of the juice glasses that I thought were ridiculously small when we got them shortly after getting married almost 10 years ago.

Finally, I pulled out my Ludum Dare t-shirt from 2011, when I went to an Ludum Dare gathering at GDC. It’s fitting a little tighter around my midsection but otherwise seems to still fit.

I spent more time than I maybe should have reading through other people’s posts. We’re now past the first 12 hours of the compo, and my goal is to have something playable within the next 12 hours.

So, Disaster City. I think the “Delay the Inevitable” theme seems to push me to make the kinds of games I started out making, in which there is no victory condition, just a game in which you see how long you can last before you lose. I want to resist this tendency, so what’s inevitable that isn’t also an ending?

Or maybe it is fine for it to be an ending, and the focus is on what you do before then?

Originally, my thought was that Disaster City would constantly be hit with multiple disasters, and you have limited resources to repair and restore what’s happening. Your efforts never make it 100% better, so it’s more about reducing the impact rather than eliminating it. And eventually it all comes crumbling down.

But now I’m sad. What’s the point?

Instead, what if there was a way to achieve victory?

I’m thinking that you are part of the city council. There is a meteor heading towards the planet, and you need to fund R&D and eventually a mission to divert it.

Unfortunately, Disaster City earned its name. You also need to deal with disasters such as monster attacks, floods, fires, etc. These disasters damage and eventually destroy homes, roads, utilities, commercial centers, entertainment options like stadiums, etc. As you lose those things, you lose people, income sources, and your capabilities to prevent and repair the damage.

So it’s a balancing act. You have an ultimate big bad thing coming, but you also have the more immediate things to worry about. You need to decide when to let go of the immediate consequences to focus on the long-term without letting the short-term consequences prevent your long-term goal from being achieved. The game ends when you manage to prevent the meteor from hitting the planet, or when it hits the planet, or when your city’s population disappears.

It feels overscoped at the moment.

I jotted down some notes and started trying to come up with a screen layout.

I think I still need to do some prototyping on paper to get a feel for how the game will actually work instead of hand-wavy vagueness,m but otherwise, I think this direction might work.

Ok, so after I published my first round of ideas for the theme Delay the Inevitable, I started to really like the idea of a game about urban decay.

A reverse city builder?

I thought about a city block that would slowly get potholes in its streets, broken windows, crumbling building foundations, etc. You need to fix things, and you have to prioritize what gets fixed because there aren’t enough resources to go around.

On top of it all, your fixes won’t restore things beyond a certain point, so everything gets worse, but you can at least slow it down.

But as I looked up urban decay to see if there was anything I could use to inspire the mechanics or theme, I realized that a lot of urban decay is the direct result of white supremacy, systemic racism, and redlining.

I think it would make for an excellent educational game topic, but I don’t think I have the ability to gain enough expertise on this topic to treat it with the justice and sensitivity it deserves in 48 hours.

I tweeted about it, and Jayenkai suggested I could still use the urban decay concept in a non-realistic world:

Then don't go the realism route. Let the 80s Arcade stylings take over. What if, instead of people in a real environment, they were Pac-Man style ghosts? What if Pac-Man was darting around the maze, smashing it up, and the ghosts had to try to fix it..?

— Jayenkai [JNK] (@Jayenkai) April 2, 2022

So now I am thinking about where else urban decay could apply. An ant hill? A rabbit burrow? A castle dealing with dragons, wizards, and angry villagers? An open office space?

I’m about 2 hours into the compo, and it is getting late. I think I’ll draw some concept art and then go to bed.

Over a month ago, I announced that Toy Factory Fixer was finally published.

A few weeks ago, I even published a post-mortem.

But I still have a few tasks I wanted to finish before moving on to another project.

Sprint 54: Post-release

Planned and Incomplete:

• Create a strategy guide
• Update Toy Factory Fixer web page

Between the holidays, taking time to play games, planning for 2022, and taking a week long vacation with my family, I’ve been slow to get back into the swing of things this past month.

I finished January with my first week of development, and it was primarily focused on writing.

Right now, if you sign up for the GBGames Curiosities Newsletter, you’ll get a free Toytles: Leaf Raking Player’s Guide.

I want to provide a similar incentive by creating a Player’s Guide for Toy Factory Fixer.

Unfortunately, I only had a few hours dedicated to the task, so I am maybe halfway through. I expect to finish the work this coming week, but I might find myself editing it for longer than I expect.

And I think I definitely need to think about how much time a future game’s Player’s Guide will take to write.

One simple task I haven’t gotten around to yet is to update the animated GIF on Toy Factory Fixer’s webpage. It’s outdated and doesn’t show the latest game play.

My current workflow for creating animated GIFs requires recording a video, then using ffmpeg to create the GIF. It’s not difficult to do, but it is a little time-consuming in terms of trying to capture the right moments to reflect in the game.

So, in summary, I took some time away from development, and I am slowly getting back to it.

After that, I get to decide what my next project is, and I have some ideas I’d like to explore in terms of how to display the world in a unique way.

Thanks for reading!

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Want to learn when I release updates to Toytles: Leaf Raking, Toy Factory Fixer, or about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and get the 24-page, full color PDF of the Toytles: Leaf Raking Player’s Guide for free, and eventually the Toy Factory Fixer Player’s Guide as well!