#ld33

It's a dark but funny point'n'click noir pixelart quest with jazzy score, that will bring you back to the...well, to the old times, yeah, old times with classy gentlemen and beautiful ladies.

Idea

As I pointed out in the earlier LD-report, “You are the monster” was not among my personal top due to the fact it sparkled no ideas in me right away (unlike some others).

So I started with Wiki-search for “monster” to widen my perspective. The main takeaway for me was that “monster” is the label people stick on someone they find abnormal, hideous, scary. Like people with “abnormal” body traits or the ones with “abnormal” behavior or moral standards. Roughly put, you are labeled a “monster” if people are unable to understand you, to include you in their world view and - therefore - are afraid of you.

I’ve decided to make a little game where the player’s avatar (unpredictably named Monny, by the way) differs from everyone around greatly in how they look and what they are capable of - and they are called a monster among others for that. And then the players’ natural desire of being loved (we all have that, yep) motivates them to de-monstrate: turn to not being a monster anymore by showing folks you are essentially not evil and can do good/fun things. And the game enables players to do that.

Yet the ability to just smash everything and scare everyone was also included. Rendering your power on others or just letting the steam out - you do your own thing through the tools the game gives you. That’s what I believe interactivity to be about.

What went wrong

Time management. Unlike before, I even did some preparations prior to the jam, but overall - with that lack of sleep I got - time management leads this list. Even though everyone seems to get that in jams. At some point I want to make a decent game in 48h and feel great through all the process.

Planning. Since there was almost none. I’ve tried to line out some basic features I want in the game and what is just enough for it to be playable and fun. But then I’ve had some implementation questions I’ve decided to answer through trial and error, and ultimately it all went a bit chaotic.

Variety. De-monstration happens when the monster uses his abilities in a fitting context: when meeting cello fans, play the cello or bird-sing to it, but don’t smash it or just scream. But there were meant to be more. You’d run into a folk in the woods confronted by a wolf (use your smash on the wolf to make the folk happy). You’d encounter the folks dancing around some tribal idol (they’d cheer if you scream insanely to their dance). That kinda stuff. Never had time though.

Music. It’s a funny thing and I blame it on my little panic. The thing is I’ve made autotracker.py (chiptune music loops generator) work for me earlier that week before the LD. I’ve tested it, I’ve made sure it makes cool-enough stuff, I was all ready to generate random loops until I get something that fits the game. And then I was in such a rush I just forgot about it! That’s plain stupid.

User Interface. UIs are always the last ones to do, which puts them in the maximum risk of being not done. In what little time I had I just made the essential in-game tutorial labels, and then I’ve made the results label and fixed the results management in a fix after the deadline, but otherwise the game is UI-less. :)

Z-layering. Currently the layering is hand-adjusted inside the complex objects of the monster and folks (see #5 in the “right” list), but is taken zero care of on a scene’s scale. So you can see folks and wise idols over the monster’s face, etc. I even know how it’s done, I just didn’t do it.

What went right

Visuals. The most surprising part, which makes me blush and happy. I have almost no control over the lines and colors, so I was shooting for just some clean enough programmer art. All of a sudden I’ve impulsively decided to hand-draw assets for the game on my own in just plain black and white, and spent the most pleasant first jam’s day drawing away. And then the commenters came and said they really liked the visuals! And I was all like “what?! are you kidding me?!”. Hope they were not. :)

Gameplay. This is a game about socializing, basically: you could play nice or get nasty and have the others react to that. And there’s no “right” way to go, the only hint is in the name: “this is a game where you can de-monstrate, please mind that”. Judging from the comments, there were people going both ways and they all have enjoyed themselves in the process. Which I consider a thumbs-up for the gameplay.

Tutorial and words. People wrote about how they enjoyed the in-game tutorial, which gave me cheers. From the two letsplays I’ve seen as of writing this, though, I can see I could’ve been a bit more clear about the basic action controls: I've written “left-click-smash” there, while it’s really a “left-mouse-button-hold-smash”. Sorry, guys, cheated you there. :) Still I consider the tutorial to be more of a win. It’s also cool to see I’m not the only one to enjoy the wordplay in the name. Now I’m going to do even more of that!

Feedback. I like how the audio-visual feedback in the game seems to be working good. Every action has a sound and a simple animation, and the affected stuff and folks react to the action in a seemingly clear fashion, which makes one understand what they’ve just did. It could possibly use even more “juice”, simple particles and some screenshake, but I really like even what I have now.

Complex objects. I really enjoy this one. Monny and all the folks are complex objects constructed from several independent parts. Which enables:

easier control (folks’ reactions are just switching their faces),

multiple actions (objects have several colliders and triggers for different purposes),

customization (lads have bowlers as hats, while lasses are made by putting bows in that same “slot”),

actions animation (only the parts involved are animated)

and a nice tiny detail - the moving eyes. :) Several commenters seemed to also enjoy the latter: Monny looks at the mouse pointer (which gives you a clue about where he’s going to smash/grab) and folks look at what matters: their cellos, Monny or the town they run for.

Coding practice. I've had a nice real coding practice with this game. My main projects have me as a designer of all sorts of stuff, not the coder, so I like it when I can exercise in C#+Unity, come up with functional solutions to things and also try to make that code as healthy as I can. I’m already at the point, where I’d be using different managers for different tasks, and even deliberately split large classes into smaller ones if I see that as doable. I don’t want to sound narcissistic, but I really am a bit proud of that. :)

To conclude

I am still a week away from getting my final rating for the game, which was one of the main reasons I’ve entered compo-version, and not the jam-version of the Ludum Dare.

But for now - all things considered - I think "de-monstration” turned out well. I’ve not polished it enough and the variety is lacking, but the gameplay seems to be all right, and my design and technical solutions seem to give people some fun, which is awesome.

Thanks, LD33! :)