A Happy Mistake 4 0
mr_1337First things first… An introduction
Hello World! (Never been good at introductions, but here goes…) My name is mr_1337 (can't believe that username was available) and live in Sweden. Been prototyping a few games in the past, but never anything to show for. In a pathetic attempt to actually create something from scratch with the plan of completing and releasing I decided to join a gam jam, which leads me to..
Scroll down for TL;DR and game
In the begining there was nothing
With my head held high I started drawing the sprites. That went well I thought and I soon had a, pretty good I thought, main character for my game. Cut to a few hours in, I started with the animations. Been programming for a few years in Java, and this was the first time using Unity. I had watched a few videos on how to use it and noticed that C# was pretty close to Java so how hard could it be right? I have never been so wrong in my life. 12 hours in and I was still stuck at the animation part.
The end is nigh
I rather quickly realized that I was not going to make it, neither Ranked nor Unranked, but what a wise man once said,
"Quitters never win"
So, working on the game for a week, I finally made it! My first completed game! (Yes, I'm proud of it! Probably more than I should be). Overall, I'm pretty happy how the Jam turned out, even learned a few things. Few of them being; DON'T LEARN A NEW ENGINE UNDER THE JAM, DON'T DRAW, FOR GOD SAKE DON'T DRAW. Will most definetly continue making games in Unity though and now when I've got a hang of how everything works I can't wait to release my next game. Will most likely join more jams in the future!
Oh, one more thing, Happy Jamming!
Pic dumps!
Title Screen
(url: http://tinypic.com/r/33ufvpj/9)
Game preview:
(url: http://tinypic.com/r/352q2ar/9)
(url: http://tinypic.com/r/hx2ckx/9)
TL;DR and Game
TL;DR
Did not make it in time, but still decided to complete and release the game! Feedback is much appreciated! :) (First game ever completed, please go gently on it)
Game Links
Comments (4)
It really depends. Of course learning a new things like engine is harder if you're going solo. As always in jams, it's all about priorities. If learning a new engine, you should probably first focus on getting the basic gameplay working without any fancy graphics/sounds etc.
The game was a bit too random. Sometimes the house spawned right next to the character for an easy win and sometimes the monster did which resulted on certain doom. The trees can also mask the help message in the start. Probably the easiest fix would be to create "a spawn area" which would be clear of any randomly placed all objects (trees, monster, house).
Animations could use some more love as well. The text animations ("press any key…" and "try again") were very choppy, not sure if it was intended to be like that. The character was differently sized when idle and walking horizontally and the walk cycle had a weird looking pop before looping. The flame animation didn't look quite perfect either. You could have also added that same flame animation to all torches, not just the one the character was holding.
But yeah, good job on finishing, even if it wasn't for the jam…
Congrats on finishing your first game! Using a new engine in a week-end project is definitely hard, and Unity's animation system has a lot of quirks so I understand your frustration… Like Huvaa says, jams are also here to learn, and I'm sure if you had to remake the same game (programming + art + animation etc.) everything would go much faster!
FYI you can still "submit" your game to Alakajam from your user profile (Dashboard > Entries), it won't be attached to any event but can make things easier for sharing the game here.
Regarding the game itself, for a very first game it was actually a cool gameplay idea, especially since we don't often see horror games in game jams! It works fine and was fun for the (short) time it lasted. There's a cool Don't Starve influence in the art & animations, but the place does feel a bit empty and could have used more art in the background (if only just a dirt texture). I agree with Antti's remarks on the animations and level generation, though I'm sure you will quickly improve with experience.
Cheers!
I tend to disagree. Sure, if you want to make a good game during a jam, stick to what you know. But in my opinion the best time to learn new things is during a jam. I find it hard to motivate myself to learn new things just because, but with the pressure of the jam I tend to push through the slump and often manage to learn alot.
Anyway, congratulations on your first game!
Aye, true. This would probably also been another uncomplete project if it wasn't for the jam and the thought of actually releasing something. And thank you!
It really depends. Of course learning a new things like engine is harder if you're going solo. As always in jams, it's all about priorities. If learning a new engine, you should probably first focus on getting the basic gameplay working without any fancy graphics/sounds etc.
Aye, that's for sure! Learned a lot about what takes time and what naught.
The game was a bit too random. Sometimes the house spawned right next to the character for an easy win and sometimes the monster did which resulted on certain doom. The trees can also mask the help message in the start. Probably the easiest fix would be to create "a spawn area" which would be clear of any randomly placed all objects (trees, monster, house).
Aye, "forgot" to fix that xD. Was so focused on just releasing, but will certainly remember that for future games! Thanks for feedback!
Animations could use some more love as well. The text animations ("press any key…" and "try again") were very choppy, not sure if it was intended to be like that. The character was differently sized when idle and walking horizontally and the walk cycle had a weird looking pop before looping. The flame animation didn't look quite perfect either. You could have also added that same flame animation to all torches, not just the one the character was holding.
Aye, I agree! Trying to do better animations. Apparently there's something called "the 12 principles of animation", so fascinating! The text was not intended to be choppy at the begining, but I thought it contributed to an uneasy feeling so I keeped it, but yeah, will remember that. Thanks for the great feedback!
Congrats on finishing your first game! Using a new engine in a week-end project is definitely hard, and Unity's animation system has a lot of quirks so I understand your frustration… Like Huvaa says, jams are also here to learn, and I'm sure if you had to remake the same game (programming + art + animation etc.) everything would go much faster!
Thank you! Haha yeah, tried my best though, will finish in time next time! Yeah, got inspiration to make a sequal just based on all this awesome feedback to fix all that's "broken(?)"
FYI you can still "submit" your game to Alakajam from your user profile (Dashboard > Entries), it won't be attached to any event but can make things easier for sharing the game here.
Will do that, cheers!
Regarding the game itself, for a very first game it was actually a cool gameplay idea, especially since we don't often see horror games in game jams! It works fine and was fun for the (short) time it lasted. There's a cool Don't Starve influence in the art & animations, but the place does feel a bit empty and could have used more art in the background (if only just a dirt texture). I agree with Antti's remarks on the animations and level generation, though I'm sure you will quickly improve with experience.
Thanks! Yeah, have always loved horror, horror flows in my veins. Really struggled to fill the game with more content than just to search for a house, so that's when I added "The Big Bad" for some challenge. Had plans on spawning trees with skeleton corpses that was holding the torches you pick up, but that idea quickly turned into bigger ideas so had to leave that train of thought behind to finish, so sad. Got a lot of inspiration from Don't Starve and some Timb Burton, love that taste of bitter sweetness. Thanks for the feedback!
I tend to disagree. Sure, if you want to make a good game during a jam, stick to what you know. But in my opinion the best time to learn new things is during a jam. I find it hard to motivate myself to learn new things just because, but with the pressure of the jam I tend to push through the slump and often manage to learn alot.
Anyway, congratulations on your first game!