Joining the game jam with an idea for a racing game set in icy caves! 

For this two week span, I plan to make all the paths ice, and make some hopefully interesting mechanics.

• Wallrunning
• Wallsliding (?) - If you have enough speed, you can slide up walls instead, something like this. I think it'll be an interesting risk/reward system where it's faster but more dangerous.
• 2 ways to turn - Firstly, you can strafe/turn with the a/d keys and by looking in different directions. However, this will actually influence your momentum less and less the faster you go, so you can intentionally slow down to turn quickly. Secondly, you can click the left or right mouse button to plant poles on either side of you. With this, you'll rotate around it until you release. You'll rotate faster the faster you're going. It's a risky, but quick way to turn without losing speed or control, so long as your timing's good.

I'll probably only make one or two levels, where the focus is replaying to get the fastest time. I'm not entirely sure if this is doable in 2 weeks, but my plan goes something like this: 

• 1 day - Basic ice motion mechanic
• 2 days - Make Wallrunning mechanic
• 2 days - Make Wallsliding mechanics
• 2 days - Make turning mechanics
• 1 day - Polishing and working on "feel-good"
• 2 days - Make the game "fluff" (Main menu, pause menu, etc.)
• 2 days - Make a simple model with simple animations
• 1 day - Some rudimentary music
• 1 day - Fixing any more bugs and polishing

Any advice? Any recommended adjustments to my plan? I'm going to be spending around 1-3 hours per day.

That sounds really cool, I think you ca do this with your plan.

The mechanics are pretty simple, but I think, it can be truly challenging.

The only thing that will take much time is the polishing. maybe you should plan more time for it. The icy tracks seems to be a crucial part of the game what chooses over the win in the game, if I typed it correctly. You know what I mean, right?^^

But, I think, this can be a challenging, but very fun game. I would play it if it will be finished soon. Subscribed^^

This is a great idea. I especially liked the sharp turn. If you make multiplayer, then this game will blow up Google play and appstore! 🔥 🔥 🔥

I agree with Kane, the mechanics may seem simple at first, but you may run into difficulties and get stuck trying to add all of the features. I would add some consideration to making the environment, I didn't see an entry for that in your list. Otherwise it seems simple enough to work!

Thank you all for the encouragement and feedback! I adjusted my plan, dropping animation and music in favor of more polishing time and level design time.

i love that youre already thinking about how long things will take--this is great! i will say i think sometimes the mechanics may be straightforward to implement, but other times you might come across snags that you dont anticipate (and that's okay!). additionally, sometimes mechanics are straightforward to implement but difficult to balance so that's something that you might also want to consider too. either way it's nice that you have outlined all your mechanic goals--already you have a scope-able game that can be made larger or smaller based on how much you think you'll get done as the jam goes on. best of luck!

Day 2: I finished up the Ice Material and behaviour, and managed to finish the wallrun early, meaning I can start wallsliding early!

Credit to Dean Ashford for the Ice Tutorial and Credit to Reid Treharne for the Wallrunning Tutorial (I did adjust a few things for this one though).

Been having a issue with building lighting, the swarm agent seems to be unable to ping the swarm coordinator. I've been trying to fix it, but if anyone can help that'd be greatly appreciated.

Video: 

ohhh this is SOOO COOL i'm glad you were able to capture a video of it! great progress! i'm loving that you have the ice material too already.

Day 3: I finished the Wallsliding mechanic (needs polishing though), the turning mechanics and the braking mechanic. All done without tutorials, and with lots of fiddling around. 

I think the wallsliding mechanic was implemented pretty interestingly, so if anyone wants a tutorial on that, I'd love to make a short one. There is one drawback to the wallsliding mechanic right now though: You can only wallslide up straight surfaces. As you see in the video, you can cheat by making a ramp out of many straight surfaces, but this is inconvenient. Still having the lighting issue as well, but overall hyped with the fast af progess I've been able to make!

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0mnayjYlsE

I like that you are spending about a week to hone the mechanics, and then the rest is mostly polish. I would suggest making one level and focus on giving that level a fun tension curve. So a mixture of low pressure straightaways with high tension sharp turns and jumps in between.

ahh this is really nice progress! i would agree with singulo about the level--i think you've already got solid mechanics progress and it could be cool to find ways to try out the mechanic and see how it could be fun or challenging in context.

Day 5: Polished the features, decreasing speed, braking and acceleration. Also added a few other things, such as tilt when turning. Streamlines some code too, and improved the ice texture. Also created a playground level to test mechanics (could be the future tutorial level). 

I've been facing a problem with my wallslide. Essentially, when I hit something, Unreal's collision implementation comes in first sometines, slowing me down, making it hard for me to consistently wallslide. Does anybody know a way to ensure my wallslide checks run before unreal's collision?

Also been unable to fix the lighting issue :(

Day 7: Finished the first level (the actual level part). I think it's pretty good, there are a lotta different routes and stuff. I show some in the video (if you don't want spoilers don't watch). Tomorrow will be decoration (adding rocks), and the day after will be fixing the bugs I was facing. Looks like things are coming together into a fun game!

Ok, well the game jam's over, so here's my submission. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1alU9jPaMS93tDZEboLPGIqMCirOfwkUB?usp=sha...

I think I got less done than I would've done, next time I participate in a game jam I probably want to try and improve how well I can handle the other stuff in games, like the HUD, menus, etc. Also, would like to work on more art next time. I think I learnt a lot about making feelgood mechanics - There's a lot of tweaking involved. I don't think BLFB is there , but it was an interesting learning experience! I think I also learnt about how, especially in first person games, you need responses to player actions to make it easier to understand. I got good practice in 3D level design, and think I derusted well. For next time I participate in a jam, I think I'd like to focus on making a game which looks good.