So, doing my very first game jam and my first Unity game... After reading that topic is a HOLE, I dug myself in to a hole for some thinking and building. But now I consider my game mostly done. So I popped up and see that you doing that dev-log thing. Ok, then, let's do it in retrospective.
Day 1. I got the topic and started thinking. That what was running through my brain:
- Wormhole - puzzle game where you looking at the apple and need to find matching exit to one of the wormholes in that apple.
- Crater - something to do with craters, those are holes too.
- Air-balloon - punch a hole in the air balloon to force it to go through some kind of the contraption, like "The Incredible Machine"
Then it hit me (looks like I spent too much time in Kerbal Space Program rescuing kerbals from LKO):
- Stranded in space Astronaut with no means to move except of punching a HOLE in the space suit and letting the air out of the suit, providing one burst of thrust.
So I started working on it right away. First task was to replicate simple orbital mechanics and render predicted orbit, so players will see where they are going end-up, if they will do nothing.
At the end of day one I had one white circle orbiting other white circle and thin blue line predicting that orbit.
Day 2. Now I was in need to have a way to store levels, so I could start working on level editor. At that point I had an generic art downloaded from internet to see where is my astronaut, planets and space station.
I made an base structure for level file and created ways to save and load it. It counted as a win for me that day, since it was Monday for me and it was very busy outside from my game dev.
Day 3. That day was exciting, because I made an level editor and implemented all base game mechanics:
- Astronaut following gravity pulls of the objects and suffocates when he is out of the air for too long;
- Space station that you need to reach to be alive, safe and win the stage;
= Planets, that will try to catch you in to their orbits or smash your face on to it's surface;
- Anti-gravity planets that will push you out of their sphere of influence;
- Asteroids that have no gravity pull. But collision with asteroid is still deadly;
- Hole punching, that will give you a directed thrust and rapidly deplete your O2 reserves;
- Time flow control, so you can pause the time and choose you thrust direction calmly.
With that done, I was ready for Day 4
Day 4. Level building, art making.
I made an set of 12 levels/stages/puzzles... 4 groups of 3 levels each with a little new twist on the next group.
Rest of the day I spent making the art of the planets, asteroids, station and astronaut. Also I searched internet for a free and nice looking background picture of the space.
I was going to add background music, but made an executive decision not to add any sounds to game since there is no sounds in space (yeah, I know, you still hear yourself breathing and other sounds that inflict your space suit... But let's say that we are looking on all that puzzle scene from elsewhere and produce no sound at all)
Day 5. UI, main menu, game screen
At this point I messed up a bit and thought that I am in a range of 48 hours out of submission deadline. Only next day I realized that deadline for me is not on Saturday but on Sunday, so now I kinda have one spare day. I will think about what I can implement during those additional 24 hours.
But back to day 5: since I imagined rapidly approaching deadline - I concentrated all my effort on building actual game from what I had at the moment(physics engine, art and level editor with set of the levels). There was no way to play those levels at this points(well, you kinda could to play in the editor, but that was not an intended way to do it)
So I started building main menu with a little tutorial section with written instructions on basic game mechanics and controls. Then I made an UI for game itself, making new sprites which I did not thought make before. I end up with a mix of the 8 bit pixel art and little bit more defined style of the PC games of 90-th. I wish I had more art talent... Anyway, back to story.
At the end of the day I had a playable game.
Day 6. That day I dedicated to play testing the thing. I put my mother in front of the screen and told her to play. Well, for woman who only played 8 bit Mario long time ago... that went well :) I sent links to the game to my brother and my friend, their review still pending.
Meantime I decided to add scores. Score is based on time you spend on the your successful try. Failed ones does not count. Lower the score - better. You can see your score on the screen after you finish the stage and also you will see list of all scores for all stages after you finish them all. Later I will post my personal bests here so you could beat those.
Also I made an simple cut scenes showing you astronaut safely reaching the station, crashing face on to the rock or twitching while dying of suffocation.
Tomorrow I will update you on last touches I added to game and provide some screenshots and photos of my notepad :)
P.S. That project was a blast. It still feels like ugly duckling to me, since I can imagine it made much better with 3D planets and beautiful textures... But I was not confident in my skills enough to start with 3D projects, so I made it a 2D sprite based game. But as Brackeys and other game-dev youtubers tell us: "GameJams are great for rapid prototyping". So I consider that game as a prototype of the mechanics that I enjoyed making and playing. If you guys and gals will enjoy it to(no matter if I will get in to top on any category or not), I will rebuild it as beautiful 3D game in upcoming months and will release it on Steam, Play Store, etc so we all could enjoy it. It is short, but new one will have much more levels and in theory I even can find a way to generate lots of those levels... So if you will enjoy this game - let me know in comments and I will work extra hard to release it.
