This last weekend I participated in Ludum Dare 42’s 72 hour game jam. I chose the 72 hour game jam over the 48 hour game jam because I wanted to test out some Unity tech I’ve been working on. Here is a link to the Ludum Dare rules if you’re interested.
The theme was “Running out of Space”. It was a strong, evocative theme both emotionally and mechanically. The theme quickly led me to the inventory system of Resident Evil 4, a game and a mechanic I’ve always been impressed with.
I ended up with The Whole Universe and There’s Not Enough Space. The player must survive as long as they can on the edge of the known universe while quickly running out of supplies. They must balance their hull, shields, fuel, and oxygen as they fly around asteroid filled space looking for cargo to put in their hold. Once in the hold, they must sort the strangely shaped cargo to fit as much as possible. When resources run low, the player can use the cargo to refill their supplies, but the cargo then cements in place, permanently taking up space.
So, here’s a breakdown of how my game jam went!
What Went Right
Main Mechanic
The cargo packing mechanic was fun and has a lot of potential. It hits all the puzzle elements in the right way while still being flexible both in scope and mechanic. The cherry on top was the “cementing” mechanic. When you use an item in your hull, it darkens and you can neither remove it nor destroy it. It adds an extra layer and some drama to your packing and decision making.
I feel like the mechanic has a lot of legs for a lit of different game. One version I keep picturing is in a larger rpg type game. Your inventory is both your abilities and your loot. The more abilities your bring, the less room you have for loot, and vice versa. The mechanic can also evolve to have proximity of items matter. Maybe you can augment your armor by having an upgrade next to it in your inventory.
The mechanic has a lot of juicy design space to explore down the road.
I am quite happy with the main mechanic. It hit the right tones of puzzle while still complementing the other aspects of the game.
Custom Unity Tech
My custom Unity Tech saved me a large amount of time. I was able to get complex systems up and running in a malleable, expandable fashion as I added to the game. The two most valuable were the Global Game Event system and my Game Grid tech which I’ll have future blog posts about.
Tension in the Gameplay
In the game, I wanted the player to make tough choices as the game progressed and I feel like I hit it spot on. The different resources change the way you play as the game progresses. The most important is your 02 which always ticks away, even when you’re puzzling around in the cargo hold. Shield slowly regenerates so if you go slowly, costing you O2, you can effectively get some health back. Fuel accelerates you which gets you cargo faster, but if you are overzealous with the asteroid-inspired controls, you waste fuel and take damage.
Overall, I’m very happy with the dynamics that emerged.
The spread of stats and how they function yielded a nice amount of tension.
What Went Wrong
Wrong Version of Unity
Excited about the new prefab workflow for Unity, I used the new preview build of Unity. The workflow was great and saved me time, but also there were unforeseen consequences. Tile Palettes simply did not work (since Unity saves them as prefabs) and I had frequent crashes. The consequences are on me though, the preview build isn’t even an official beta. Moving forward I will be more careful with which version I use.
My Tech
Though my tech saved me a lot of time, a lot of it was untested. I hit a few speed bumps and rather than hack my way through them, I felt compelled to fix them up correctly so that I could update the tech.
Also, due to them being untested, I hit an edge case in the last hour that caused a consistent editor crash. I was able to sort it out eventually, but it was a hectic hour.
Despite the speed bumps, the tech did speed up a lot of development. The spaceship part was up and running in a few hours.
Overscope
I also wanted to experiment with having the player run out of emotional room by forcing them to make tough choices like whether or not there was room for another passenger, unfortunately, that is a game in of itself. I quickly realized that was out of scope. Luckily, my game could scale while still maintaining the mechanical core.
Also, a stronger tutorial would have been useful if I had time. Despite putting in a slideshow optional tutorial, players missed how to “cement” their cargo which is the key part of the experience. Incorporating room for the tutorial in the scope is always important for any game. This is just another reminder.
Overall I’m very happy with My Ludum Dare 42 experience and I can’t wait for the next one!