Opening
LudumDare #24 was held on 24~28th of August 2012 (Compo mode ended in 27th, Jam/team mode is 28 which is yesterday). Yeah we were SUPPOSED to submit our game as Jammer and we FAILED, gracefully. So rather than sharing success story (as we were getting asked to) we prefer on making this, our fail story.
Why join LudumDare?
hipon's story:
It all started a day before ludumdare, I was sitting on my crappy chair, working on stellar’s latest project, Grand Steam. It’s been 8 months since the project started and I started to get bored. I checked my twitter and saw a lot of people talking about ludumdare, all of them were really excited to join.I was caught in ludumdare’s hype and a dilemma...
I was in a middle of a big project, i wanted to complete this project soon, but ludumdare’s hype was too strong. After a hours of thinking, I decided to join.
Next day, I told laz about my plan to join ludumdare compo, yeah compo, I was planned to do a solo this time. After some conversations, we decided to do a jam. It was around 2 o’clock when we decided to join Ludumdare jam. which means we’re already late about 6-7 hours.
Laz's story:
Some days before LD#24 started, i was getting a feeling that hipon will want to join, and i was right, lol. As hipon stated that he would join the event (for compo at least he need 48 hrs) i think, that’s not going to speed up our progress (for Grand Steam) anyway, so why don’t we all join it like we did last year? I guess we all need to do something different for refreshment.Another thing i want to achieve here is to train our project management skill, working effectively under a short period, so mainly is discipline exercise. Not that i didn’t get tempted at all to join LD, because the theme is interesting haha.
BTW actually i was going to ask if clea agreed to join as jammers but clea was not waking up yet so hipon and i decided it by ourselves. :v
I look forward to see where this game will go, as usual, I'll try to make sure that it's balanced, interesting, and unique. So, you guys can expect something good soon.
Reach higher score than anyone else (scoreboard system) within certain time limit.
Scoring system / what to score is not yet fix, but highest chance to get implemented is: counting from the growth rate of a certain building (an evolution indicator perhaps).
2. City management consist of Planning, Building, Setting, Linking.
3. Each building has to be linked to other certain building to make it functional, for example, player need to Link a Forest to Workshop, to gain Lumber.
4. Building evolution (just like upgrading) can be triggered by meeting requirements.
5. Each action/command takes time to be executed, so player won’t just put something randomly and cancel anytime they wish.
clea's story:
When I woke up, they told me we're joining LD, and we're making a Simulation game. I was like oh well it will only take 3 days so no big deal. After discussing about game details, I'm convinced I'll be able to finish the audio in time, and I was right. But the hard part is somewhere else, it's our first RTS game, there is much to learn and experiment. A pity that this game ended up not submitted, but it was a good effort and experience for me.I look forward to see where this game will go, as usual, I'll try to make sure that it's balanced, interesting, and unique. So, you guys can expect something good soon.
So what was the game about (supposed to be) anyway?
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| a successful teaser hahah |
Title: Linoveus Cube
A simple real-time strategy, economic simulation/ time management game. Cube/box and surrealism is the art theme so we made a joke about new genre called RTS: Real Time Surrealism.Main challenge:
Reach higher score than anyone else (scoreboard system) within certain time limit.
Scoring system / what to score is not yet fix, but highest chance to get implemented is: counting from the growth rate of a certain building (an evolution indicator perhaps).
Gameplay:
1. Player is given a century (60 minutes in real time) to make evolution, for that, player need to manage resources available on the map and convert it to something else needed to balance the economy.2. City management consist of Planning, Building, Setting, Linking.
3. Each building has to be linked to other certain building to make it functional, for example, player need to Link a Forest to Workshop, to gain Lumber.
4. Building evolution (just like upgrading) can be triggered by meeting requirements.
5. Each action/command takes time to be executed, so player won’t just put something randomly and cancel anytime they wish.
Development diary
Day 1
Firstly, we decided what genre will we develop, hipon suggested not to make action games (hipon: “I’ve had enough of that!”). Laz suggested simulation genre or economic game like Anno series. Hipon don’t know much about that genre, since he only played few simulation games, but it’s still better than making another action games, so, it’s a deal.So the theme is Evolution. We were aware that most of people will think about Darwin’s evolution theme, so much likely survival game, or breeding game like Pokemon/ Digimon, so we avoided (potential) mainstream themes as well.
The game design was *mostly* done by Lazcht & clea, they’re both have more experience in simulation genre, hipon could only gave some suggestions and limitations.
Laz started to brainstorm something like:
1. evolving building (maybe something like Gaeus from Legend of Mana), triggered by ???
2. evolving God, godgame type (Laz want something desert themed, you don’t want to know why)
3. evolving food, God of food
4. planting game, waiting something to grow, time investment
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| title screen mock |
In the end we picked 1 and 4 and started to develop the real game design. Within around 2 hours, the core game design was done, hipon thought it looked simple and doable... (hipon: "Well...I guess, I couldn’t decide whether it’s good, but at least it’s doable"). So, we agreed the design, then started to work on it!
.......to be continued
You will know why we failed, whatwentright whatwhenwrong on the next post :P
