'Wrong Dimension' - A self imposed game jam in a single week

That there is a gameplay screenshot of Wrong Dimension - The 1D Platformer, my current game project. 

The point of this post is to give a day by day look into my self imposed game-jam of sorts to create this experimental game of mine. 

My name is Mike Troup and I am a currently unknown game developer working to get my ideas into the hands of fellow players. I made the decision about a month ago to make game development my career (fingers crossed!) and started development on a title called Knight Time. KT is a familiar but fun take on the randomly generated 2D platformer combining random generation and familiarity. After a couple of weeks, I had decided to start work on a project that was born out of a glitch in KT that was pretty hilarious. Enter Bomb Taco. It was supposed to be a simple and fun physics based platformer. Fast forward about a week and the game design document had doubled in size with ideas that would be too fun to throw away in the name of simplicity. 

My goal of creating something simple and fun was once again gone in the wind. Some time later I decided to give myself a week to design and create a fun and addicting yet deep experience that (somehow)  played differently than any game before. Tall order, kind of. I sat there and played around with different game types and different mechanics in my head, moving them around and changing rules that we're all used to to see if any of them clicked. Then, I pictured a 2D platformer, and moved the camera up to the top! The idea of trying to complete somethign as simple as a 2D platformer in the complete wrong dimension interested me! (Yes, I know it's technically still in 2D, just roll with it).

So I decided upon that and came up with a super clever name for a game played in the wrong dimension. Wrong Dimension. I know, genius. I sat down to develop and within a day I had a playable prototype. 

Here you can see me stab what I call the "stupid swordsman" and then jump over a pitfall.

"That's a game?" you might be asking. If that is not what you're asking, please feel free to ask in the comments. Yes, it's a game, and it's surprisingly fun. 

There's something about simplicity that can allow you to concentrate on the other aspects of the game. Such as timing and movement. There is only one axis of movement, stab, and jump. That's it (other than throwable bombs) there will be nothing else added to the player character, and that's ok.

When playing this single level, it just feels right.

The movement of the single line of squares and rectangles is mezmarizing. it also makes it very easy to lose concentraiton and fall into a pit or lose your last chunk of health when you run face first into an enemy. That was day one. I was happy and proud with what I had made. What's more is the fact that it turned out to actually be fun. Weird, and fun. 

You as a reader will be able to follow along as I create this game, and hopefully have something ready to submit to Steam Greenlight by the end of this week. Which will be Thursday April 28th. I hope to have anywhere from 20 to 100+ levels by the time of full launch. (Levels will only make the cut if they are unique fun and challenging)

Today (April 22nd 2016)

Well, this blog post first off. I am now about to submit this post and head over to Unity and attempt to add an enemy I call "The Bull". A large enemy that will charge in your direction when it sees you. You will have to jump at the perfect moment to get over it, then try your best to strike it's back before it turns around. Did I mention this will not be an easy game? 

I'll be back with a gif of The Bull.

UPDATE:

There's the bull! He makes a nice imposing charging sound before he tries to steamroll you over. You can see (in the gif above) me dancing back and forth waitng for him to charge before jumping over him. His charge delay will be randomized to a small degree, so you won't know exactly when he will charge. There's some work left to do to get his behavior down right. Currently, his walking behavior will interrupt his charging behavior, so that's next on my list of to-do's. Also, I am goign to make it more graphically obvious when you are in the air so controlling your jumping will be much easier. 

April 23rd Update:

Got up early to try and tackle this bull problem (Which would sound a lot scarier if you didn't know I was talking about a game). His behavior is now perfect. I put checks in place to have either walking behavior or charging behavior. The charging sound now plays perfectly, where yesterday it was delaying by at least 2 seconds and causing a big problem. So uh, thanks Unity? 

By randomizing the timer before launching into their charge, the bulls are now a pretty formidable enemy. They've already made me jump because I was sure I got their timing down. While there's only a variable of 0.7 seconds, it apparently enough to make their charging times unexpected. Also, touching them causes damage. Makes sens right? You couldn't stand on top of a giant bull and hope to somp him to death. 

April 24th

Today I hope to refine the player controls (Currently you slide too much after letting go of the walking key), and then make it obvious that you’re jumping. Im not sure how I am going to do that. Right now, when you jump, everything below you gets a little smaller. It works, but it’s not very obvious. Maybe making the jump height higher so the ground gets much smaller? We’ll see what works best.

Update: I got the movement to work fine! I just had to decrement the walk speed when the button was let go. Drag wasn’t reliable in this situation because it affected the fall speed, which is too slow as it is. So I adjusted the gravity from 9 to 25. Since not many things in the world are affected by gravity, this shouldn’t make things difficult later on.

I got the Archer in! But I cheated.

Normal, when instantiating a projectile, I would just have it rotate to the direction to the direction the spawner is facing, but for some reason, my tired weekend brain just couldn’t get it to work. Since I only have a few days left to work on this bad boy, I cheated. I created one arrow that flies up, and one that flies down. Normally, you do not want to do this. It causes unneeded inflation in your game’s size and is just not the best way, but like I said, I didn’t have much time and the game will have a ton of reused assets, so it won’t be very big period.

Also, I added sound to the archer. He will fire before he is in sight, but you can hear him! As soo as you hear his bow being pulled back, you need to jump! Otherwise you’ll get an arrow to the face and lose a good chunk of health. Below is a gif of the Archer.

I got hit on the second one. It took me 3 tries to get this video of me dodging. I think I’ll tone down the difficulty just a bit. (Update: I toned down the difficulty just a bit. I cut the arrow damage in half)

April 25th

Today I am adding the last enemy character, ‘The Bomber’. Who, well, throws bombs. I know, more of that super clever naming skill that I have.

The bombs will have a slightly randomized detonation timer and they get thrown right at you. They will also have area damage. Thinking about making them instant kill? I’ll see how frustrating it is once I play it. If not instant, than it’ll at least take half your health.

I’d also like to get the puzzle platforms done today as well. If I can, then the game will almost be done! I’ll just have to build the save system (which I’ll write about later) and the ‘main menu’.

Everything in this game is built exactly like a traditional platformer, but seen from the top. Which means the players will have to do some investigations to figure out what’s what.

End of Day:

I got the door lock puzzle pieces done as well as the door. Each level's lock code can be customized to a certain 3 digit code of binary. Each switch has an on and off state. I also added sound to everything so they sound nice and real when you switch them on or off. I did not get to the bomber like I had hoped because a mid-day Destiny match interrupted me after lunch and my Wife insisted that we play one more round of POE. So I obliged. 

 April 26th

Today I going to get the bomber enemy in, then make the player able to use bombs. Haven't quite figured out how to work the bombs out mechanically. Should the player get them once, then have them for the rest of the game? 2 per level? Should they recharge? We'll see.

I'd love to get the main menu done too! That along side a simple save mechanic (Remember, it's a simple pass or fail each level, no complicated checkpoint or inventory saves). Then it's time to make a trailer for Steam Greenlight!

UPDATE: Got the bomber to work! Luckily a lot of his behavior was inherited from the other enemies on the map, so I copied and pasted much of the coding. I also gave him and the bombs full sound, so it's a frantic fight to get past a bomber, much less try to take them out! They are seriously difficult. So most people will probably jump over them. 

April 27th

Levels! That's what's next for me. Coding is starting to bore me and I'm craving actually making something. Unfortunately I have a bad cold that is showing me the world through a wheezing, congested filter. Yet, I will push on! 

The level design document.

That's how me and a friend of mine design Wrong Dimension levels. (He came up with a couple of really good ones. You'll get the opportunity to play them). I created a legend of all the inserts in the game. Enemies, platforms, pits, and puzzle platforms. I then draw a straight line, and fill in the symbols associated with the enemies/geography. It works very well to see how the level will play out for the player. I'm looking forward to designing many levels this way. It works really well because I can design levels wherever I am at as long as I have something to scribble on. Notebook, restaurant napkin, Deceleration of independence. (Me and Nick are bros). It also allows for a large variety of level types, which is good for the player! I plan to make between 25 to 100 levels. I would also LOVE to release this as a level editor so people can make and share their own levels, but that's only if it is successful enough to provide the finances so I can work on that feature. 

I'm also considering doing a funding campaign after launch for the level editor and multiplayer features. Kind of "I would really love to make this for you all, but I need to have the finances to do so". If it's not successful, Wrong Dimension will still be a full game, and well worth your $2.99. In my humble completely unbiased opinion. 

End of Day: This stupid cold/flu has a vice grip on my head and I couldn't get much done on the computer as far as actually building levels. SO I sat down with a hot drink and my notebook and sketched out a few more levels. Pretty good ones I might say. 

Thursday April 28th

This is the last day of my game jam. Or, at least it's supposed to be. I guess I just didnt push my hard enough (Which is completely against my 'game dev method' seen here), and this cold slowed me down. The base mechanics are done and work fine (some minor glitches that need ironed out). However, I made a promise to myself that the game would be on Greenlight today, so that's what's going to happen. I need to add a couple more sound effects to flesh out the soundscape of movement, then go on the search for royalty free 8-bit music. A Video is the top concern today. Then I need to make the Greenlight graphics. Because of the game's simple aesthetics, I have to work extra hard to make ti clear that this is a professionally designed game where the design decisions are intentional, and not lazy (as it might look). So Hopefully people will bother to read the info on the GL page to see that this game has depth *Badum tiss*. 

As far as after it's on the greenlight? I'm not sure. I feel like I need to get back to my bigger project Bomb Taco, but I also need to complete Wrong Dimension. So I'll probably try and find a way to work on both at the same time. Devote a certain amount of time to WD to get those levels built so that if it passes Greenlight, I'll have a full game to sell. I could always go Early Access seeing as how the core mechanics all work fine. We'll see how things flow. Wish me luck! 

The End!

Well, not the end completely. The end of my one week game jam for Wrong Dimension. There's more left than I'd like to admit, but I still learned a lot from all this. The most important thing I took away from this is that even the most simple game I could imagine, wasn't as simple as I imagined. 

I released on steam greenlight to, so far, mostly negative views. People just don't like the idea of a new thing. They're also equating simple with laziness. I can understand why they think that. Hundreds of crappy games go through Greenlight every day where the creator didn't put much effort into it and are just trying to make a quick buck without a love for the game. So maybe it will get Greenlit someday and the people who are willing to try it out will get a chance to play it and see why it's simplicity was a design choice. 

Until then I am heading back to Bomb Taco full time. I will dedicate one work day a week to Wrong Dimension. Seeing as the only thing left is to make the menu (super easy) and then build levels. I have a feeling it'll be a while before it gets onto Steam. Thanks for reading!

What’s Left:

Then it’s time to build the “menu” and build the levels!