Progress on Slow Blade has been, well . . . slow. Direct progress anyway. I've been working on a lot of projects with other people lately to grow my Unity skills. I'd like to talk about one of those other games, and how it will be relevant to Slow Blade.
GGJ 2015: 2 Rats, 1 Cage, a Post Mortem:
Jan 23-25 was the 48-hour Global Game Jam. I got to participate with an amazing team from the @PETAL et al meet up group. You can check out the game at our GGJ page. Or if you prefer, you can watch a speed run of the game Here.
The Game:
Two Rats-One Cage is a 2D Action puzzler built in Unity 4.6. The core premise is that you are navigating two rats through 2 separate mazes, simultaneously with the same key inputs.
The Game:
Two Rats-One Cage is a 2D Action puzzler built in Unity 4.6. The core premise is that you are navigating two rats through 2 separate mazes, simultaneously with the same key inputs.
Lead Programmer: Mark Goetz
Art Assets: David Schuttnehlem and Dan Heit
Level Design: Marty Wagner
Level Implementation: Samuel Beatty
Sound/Music: Elliot Nelson Callighan
What went right?
What I was most happy with was how well we worked together during the design phase. Considering most of us hadn't met before the event, we were very in-sync. Our vision for the core concept came together with in the first hour or so and never deviated far. We were also all very scope-minded and agreed on what limitations we were willing to work within.
As soon as we had a concept I started preparing the design doc, and kept it updated as the process progressed. I was also quick to start noting specifically what art assets would need to be needed for each feature, to keep the scope clear to all of us. I also noted all the sound assets we would need so that Elliot, our sound designer could get to work as soon as possible.
Because we had a good plan in place, Marty was able to start designing levels immediately and basically spent the whole time doing that. This proved to be a major contributor to our success. We were able to tailor the mechanics to the level design needs and vise versa.
Near the end of the 48-hours, we convened to revisit the design doc and agree on what features we could realistically finish in time. Again, we were all quick to agree on what we were willing to leave out in favor of refining existing features.
As soon as we had a concept I started preparing the design doc, and kept it updated as the process progressed. I was also quick to start noting specifically what art assets would need to be needed for each feature, to keep the scope clear to all of us. I also noted all the sound assets we would need so that Elliot, our sound designer could get to work as soon as possible.
Because we had a good plan in place, Marty was able to start designing levels immediately and basically spent the whole time doing that. This proved to be a major contributor to our success. We were able to tailor the mechanics to the level design needs and vise versa.
Near the end of the 48-hours, we convened to revisit the design doc and agree on what features we could realistically finish in time. Again, we were all quick to agree on what we were willing to leave out in favor of refining existing features.
What went wrong?
There were a few minor reworkings of functionality, and subsequent reworking of art assets that cropped up along the way. In a normal game development process, they wouldn't have been a big deal, but in a Game Jam scenario they were somewhat frustrating.
The biggest time-sink that probably could have been avoided was all of the animations for the rats that I did, which didn't end up in the game. The game ended up being more fast paced that I was originally anticipated. I agreed with the decision and it makes the game more fun, but it means the walk cycles and jumps animations I made for the rats can't be seen at all. If I had know how fast the movement would be at the beginning, I would have been able to make appropriate animations.
There were a few minor reworkings of functionality, and subsequent reworking of art assets that cropped up along the way. In a normal game development process, they wouldn't have been a big deal, but in a Game Jam scenario they were somewhat frustrating.
The biggest time-sink that probably could have been avoided was all of the animations for the rats that I did, which didn't end up in the game. The game ended up being more fast paced that I was originally anticipated. I agreed with the decision and it makes the game more fun, but it means the walk cycles and jumps animations I made for the rats can't be seen at all. If I had know how fast the movement would be at the beginning, I would have been able to make appropriate animations.
What were some disappointments?
The biggest disappointments to me are some of the hazard animations that didn't get implemented. The primary one being the hammer-swing animation. The hammer hazards still function and kill your rats, but you don't actually see them swing. As we've done play tests of the game with other people, we've found that the hammer hazard is the most confusing thing to them, because it's not apparent how it works or even what it is.
Some other disappointments were the features we weren't able to implement, like switches that change the level obstacles. The theme of the Global Game Jam this year was "What do we do now?".
Being able to alter the puzzle, or the circumstances mid level, would have gone a long way toward fitting that theme better, in my opinion.
The biggest disappointments to me are some of the hazard animations that didn't get implemented. The primary one being the hammer-swing animation. The hammer hazards still function and kill your rats, but you don't actually see them swing. As we've done play tests of the game with other people, we've found that the hammer hazard is the most confusing thing to them, because it's not apparent how it works or even what it is.
Some other disappointments were the features we weren't able to implement, like switches that change the level obstacles. The theme of the Global Game Jam this year was "What do we do now?".
Being able to alter the puzzle, or the circumstances mid level, would have gone a long way toward fitting that theme better, in my opinion.
What were some successes?
The shining success of our game is definitely Marty's level design. By the end we had 17 levels! There are some things we could refine about the difficulty curve, but for the most part, the level progression is quite well thought out, and the levels them selves provide some very interesting challenges, both in terms of planning ahead and twitch gameplay.
For me personally, what I got the most out of was learning more about how to handle art assets in Unity. I made the animations in Spriter which is the 2D bone animation tool I'm planning to use on Slow Blade. Getting experience with a Spriter/Unity workflow is going to be very valuable.
Where do we go from here?
The team has agreed that we'd like to make some revisions to the game and put it out in some larger capacity. We want to finish getting in the hazard animations that are missing, and I would like to reimplement the character animations using the Spriter2Unity plug-in rather than using sprite sheets. I've done some experiments already, and they look much better.
We also want to do a mobile build as an experiment. The controls are simple enough, and we feel like they would translate well to swipe gestures.
Mark wants to continue working to finish the game, but we are all very busy. Mark and I are actually both in the middle of a larger game project with the PETAL group that we'd like to get finished first.
I'll be sure to post when all these projects finish, as well as keeping the blog updated with progress on Slow-Blade.
The team has agreed that we'd like to make some revisions to the game and put it out in some larger capacity. We want to finish getting in the hazard animations that are missing, and I would like to reimplement the character animations using the Spriter2Unity plug-in rather than using sprite sheets. I've done some experiments already, and they look much better.
We also want to do a mobile build as an experiment. The controls are simple enough, and we feel like they would translate well to swipe gestures.
Mark wants to continue working to finish the game, but we are all very busy. Mark and I are actually both in the middle of a larger game project with the PETAL group that we'd like to get finished first.
I'll be sure to post when all these projects finish, as well as keeping the blog updated with progress on Slow-Blade.
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