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What are you guys commiting to getting done?

A topic by victordayet created 86 days ago Views: 251 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 8
Submitted(+3)(-1)

Hi everyone! I joined this jam to have a deadline to get things done for my game. I've been working on a Boomer Shooter for the last 6 months and I feel like things taking more time than it should. So I hope this jam will help me have a two-weeks burst of productivity. And hopefully I'll get some good constructive feedback or clever ideas to improve my game like I did last year.

Right now, the game more or less looks like this:

I'm saying "more or less" because the video is actually from 2 weeks ago, and I've made significant progress since then. But unfortunately I can't package the game because my 8GB of RAM keeps making this error evey time I compile: (RAM saturated, I cleared one poolthread to make space in RAM, poolthread was actually essential, compiler crashed)

So yeah, that's problematic... so I upgraded to 16GB 2 days ago and it should be here by the end of the week. I've made a copy of the entire project this morning to be able to compile the project from today when I upgrade and I'll make a before/after at the end of the jam :)


Anyway, here are my goals:

  • First, I'd like to finally make some real level design. Because right now, I only have one room of enemies and that's it. And it doesn't even explore the full potential of the quite diverse moveset that the game provides. To fix this, the plan is fairly simple:
    •  First, I need to find scenerios where the different movement mechanics are explored in interesting ways. For now, due to limited time, I'll only focus on the different kinds of jumps, the slide, and the wall run.
    • Then, I will blockout 1 or 2 levels using these different scenarios. For each mechanic, between two rooms as a tutorial, and then inside of them so the player could stylishely take down enemies while chaining cool moves馃槑
  • Then, I want to finish the second enemy at it's core (no graphics for now, just code and signs & feedbacks). Because right now, the only thing that he does is shooting an energy ball every 5 seconds when he sees the player, and he can also take dammage and die as he has the same health system as the other enemy type but that's it! By the end of this jam, I want him to:
    • Try to run away from the player when he's too close.
    • When he doesn't see the player anymore, find the closest place to where he is, from where he could see the player. (that one seems tricky but I think I can pull it off)
    • And finally, have a charging attack animation with sfx & vfx.
  • I also want to add some proper menus for keybinding and basic settings like sensitivity, volume... Stuff like that. (even though I don't really expect to have the time to do this)
  • And last but not least, I want to make progress on the movement. At it's current state, there's still quite a lot of work to do before calling it "Done!!!". But I want to fully finish the jump, the wall jump, and the wall run by the end of the jam.
    Little overview of the current state of development of the moveset

Anyway, enough about my game, I'm curious to know what you are commiting to do. Last year at the beginning of the post jam #7, a guy named Cas Windsor made a similar topic - I actually named it exactly the same as he did, to his credit - because I'm pretty sure that most of the people who publicly and explicitely said their goals at the beginning of the jam, got a burst of motivation and worked harder than they would have otherwise. Sometimes, putting your goals out there and letting your ego at risk can really help push you forward!

I can't wait to hear about your plans and see what everyone creates!
Have a nice and productive game jam!

(my apologies if there are some english errors in the message. It is not my main language, but I have tried my best:)

Submitted(+1)

Hey this is a great idea, to post what we're wanting to work on!

I plan to work on my submission to the GMTK jam this year, Reformless. It's a FPS physics puzzle platformer, trying to embrace some Portal vibes as much as I can. 

I'm in between major projects right now so I'm thinking this might turn into my next major project. But before I commit to that I have some changes I want to make to make sure. I'm hoping to do those here.

My main upgrades and changes to the game are:

  • Decrease difficulty in puzzles a little bit and increase subtle communications to the player about what to do next, ie adding in environmental indicators of what's interactable or climbable
  • Improve physics handling. 
    • Fix physics with intersecting objects when holding something
    • The physics get a little wonky on lower end computers and I'd like to see if I can fix that
    • Just in general, making physics objects a little less jumpy
  • Improve character platforming controls
  • Add in additional controls for moving and placing blocks more precisely

Finally, I'd really like to add in what I'm thinking of as "bonus levels" that don't really fit into the theme that I've already placed in the game but that I think would be nice to explore puzzles in that space for future iterations. In the current iteration of the game I've made all of the assets myself but I'm thinking for the sake of prototyping new areas, I might use a synty pack or something.

I'm so impressed you've been able to do UE development with 8 GB of RAM!

Submitted (2 edits) (+2)

Great Idea - I need help being accountable!

I plan to use the time to continue working on my GMTK 2024 Jam game Trade Trails, I am also between projects as I lose interest or confidence in the project :/

I enjoyed working on this project so I thought why not see what it can become in two weeks.

First on my agenda is to take all of the feedback from the Jam and look to implement what makes sense things like:

  • Lack of a tutorial
  • Pacing issues and balancing
  • More feedback on actions
  • More information about states
  • Easier to find trades
  • General polish
  • Fix several places that need some UX love, sounds and polish

Planned General game changes

  • Remove trade distance limit/upgrades - this was unfun and wasted the mechanic
  • Rework hazards to make them more interesting
  • Update the upgrade system to make it more engaging and less tedious
  • Planet clusters and new nodes to unlock
  • Basic event system to add trade good price fluctuations
  • New end game rather than a race to X cash

I hope to get a decent feeling prototype with more systems in the game to understand if it is fun or not - with the goal of being a lighter trading game that you can play over a lunch time or over short periods

(+1)

I'll be continuing work on my GMTK 2024 Game, Burndown.

My primary goal is to respond to the GMTK Jam comments, which I've broken down into the following categories and deliverables.

Confusion Over Objectives

Many players didn't understand what to do at first.

  • Introduce a tutorial.
  • Introduce clear goals for each stage (e.g. Features Delivered: 2/5, Bugs Fixed: 1/7)
    • Consider actually implementing a burndown chart? How does over-achieving work?
  • Refine Headlines Hinting System, add tooltips?

Fix Boring Gameplay

Many players suggested that gameplay lacked depth, some liked the tradeoffs introduced by the Outage. Introduce more tradeoffs to consider when assigning tasks.

  • Introduce Tech Debt system / Tech Debt Reduction Tasks.
  • Introduce Research (TODO: Brainstorm what effects Research Has?)
  • Experiment with Task Affinity system? Reasons to assign a particular task to a particular person.

UI and Text Issues

I missed some obvious UI problems.

  • Fix hDPI settings, test on retina displays.
  • Improve UI Contrast

Repetitive Ticker Content

The Ticker was overall well received as an idea, but was to repetitive to pay attention to.

  • Improve graphical appearance to draw attention better.
  • Rework headline generation system (headlines as resources)
  • 3 or more headlines per scenario being hinted.
  • Debounce each headline to avoid repetition.

Schedule Confusion

  • Indicate schedule uncertainty in UI, rather than having blocks popping out randomly.
  • Improve re-ordering experience.
(+1)

What is plan to work on:

  1 I want to combine my most recent game jam game with another one of my older ones then expand the gameplay greatly.

  2 the goal of this jam is to try make a game that consistently changes playstyles (still in the fast paced action but saw switching between different movement styles)

  3 I'm doing this to prove to myself I toward eventually actually releasing a game on steam instead of juts only competing in game jams and then letting my projects die 

  4 i want to pin down that art style I want to work with and i want to improve the my visual communication to players 

  5 i want to improve my audio drastically in the sound effect department. I doubt i will have time for time but id also really like to not have to keep using AI music but I think for now its the only decent option i have right now since im still REAL bad at it (and i dont have any money to buy a better software -_-)

* As a full time college student my free time is heavily limited so ill just have to see how much I can get done but I hope you all enjoy whatever i can

Host

and i dont have any money to buy a better software

If you need a DAW, you can use Reaper trial and find some free VSTs (for example, Vital, Odin2, Helm etc.) Or maybe find someone to team up with.

Submitted

As many others here, I'm planning to improve my GMTK 2024 entry in the coming months. I'm hoping to use this jam as a way to gather some more feedback and player input. Maybe some of you even want to join the Discord where I'm hoping to keep everyone up to date on future developments!

My end goal is to release the game on Steam. During that time I'll push a few new builds to itch.io until I feel like I have a solid base to keep working on. Right now the game is decent, but I think it can use some more work to keep players engaged and offer more interactivity. Hopefully I can get some more eyes on it and see what players would like to see. I have a number of ideas myself, but I'd really love to hear from the people playing the game.

You can try out the game here: https://itch.io/jam/post-jam-jam-9/rate/2913896. I hope to see you there!

Submitted(+1)

Well hello everyone!

While I know that most people will be posting updates from game jam鈥檚 past, my entry is a little bit different.  I originally started this project Skeletal Legacy as a means to truly learn the game engine game maker studio 2 about two years ago. When I learned of itch.io and game jams around March first of 2023, I stopped working on the project. I didn鈥檛 ever post the project as it wasn't finished and haven鈥檛 had much feedback on it except from a handful of friends. I figured that this would be a good time to exhume the project, get some feedback from others and decide on the project's fate of either continued development or the post-mortem graveyard (not all projects are winners). I left the project in a semi completed state for the first set of levels of the game but it is still lacking a few things. 

What I want to accomplish before the end of the Jam are as follows:

  • Finish the first boss fight implementation
  • Create a cutscene at the start of the first boss fight
  • Streamline the tutorial section so all displayed abilities are properly highlighted
  • Add more music and sound effects 
  • Create an Itch.io page that looks nice :)
  • Finish adding controller support for the game
  • Add a ending cutscene specifically for the jam

If I remember correctly, one of the main things that was stopping progress on the project was my lack of knowledge on cutscene creation but hopefully I can take care of that before the end of the jam. I鈥檒l also have to add a link to my project after I finish creating the project page.

I am excited to see everyone's entries and give/get some feedback for the jam!