w.Florencio

SYNOPSIS

Space is running out, literally... For a large junkyard ship to escape from a space anomaly, you must get rid of all extra weight that's no longer useful, and it is a LOT. Be fast enough to compact and incinerate the wreckage that comes at you and avoid getting buried. 

COMMANDS

Move: AWSD and ARROWS

Grab: J and Z

Push: X, K, and SPACE

CREDITS

Programmers: Dalton, Leandro,  Ricardo and Victor Artists: Michael and William

MORE PICTURES

FINAL RESULTS

Plot

You are a personal nutritionist that entered in the wrong store. You are diabetic, but the baker don’t give a f*ck. Reinforcement SAFE-FOOD ammunition arriving by parachute. Main quest: Give the baker “5 REASONS” to let you go.

My post mortem.

Members

Carlos André - 2d Art

William Florencio - Programming / Title Screen Art

Jam Results

We prefer a finished game than risk make a masterpiece in a weekend

Every time we participate in a jam, we care in a way we relate to us on the subject as quickly as possible, either by narrative way or the gameplay way, preferably both.

Besides the theme,we restrict the scope defining “What kind of game that we can offer playable on JAM?” Yes, if you are newbie like us, this could be severely limiting for a good exploration of the theme, but it is the price we opted to pay to have a “playable game.”

Brainstorming

Tip: Avoid anticipate ideas before starting the brainstorming with your team, you can fall in love with one of the first ideas,

and THE FRIST IDEAS ARE ALWAYS THE WEAKEST or unfeasible. Put on paper (there are techniques for this) all kind of good and bad idea without slightest judgment or shame, just sending bad queries that the brain begins to release the good answers.

Sleeping and Eating I particularly regret the glamorization of vigils, energy drinks, and despair during jams. This undermines the ideas and productivity. We promise ourselves avoid daring projects (which require time) and above the capabilities of our tiny team. Friday night for Saturday afternoon, we decided to sleep…

…and leave all those good and bad ideas in our minds at rest. I slept 7 full hours, did morning exercises, I had a good breakfast and started prototyping the game.

Theme Definition

We started working still uncertain of the theme, but agreed to set up to 12h pm Saturday, it worked! My partner had “The idea” missing 20 minutes to 12 hours, was not revolutionary, it was just what we needed. That’s more magical side not hold onto good idea to let the great see it, it is how to take the pearl of an oyster and finding that there was a whole necklace inside.

Planning streamlines the design anticipating and minimizing problems

The delay in issue of definition damaged but thorough planning, but I advise you to follow all the rituals that is already used. Sketch a simplified UML class diagram OR a super summarized GDD during brainstorming is very helpful in defining the most minute details.

Task Management

As much as the discourse of “minimalism” make your mind, .txt files are NOT good task managers. I swear! An appropriate manager (Trello ♥) is your friend, don’t be multitasking, do not try guess what to do next and not wait for inspiration….

Lists the tasks needed

Prioritize them focusing on MVP

Delegate each task to each member

DO your tasks in the order

And you will be fine

A simpleton example of what I mean about mvp. If I can not do it all the time, the minimum required is already guaranteed.

8 Varied Advices (based on what went wrong)

1 If you are more “designer” than “programmer”, prototype using geometric shapes to stay focused

2 Learn to use TileMap

I greatly help not having to create similar ugly hacks like this:

And if you use tiles, remember to have on hand a “grid notebook” or something like that to set the proportions of all elements.

3 Your partner knows what is a Jam?

When you recruit someone for the first time, make sure that the person knows what a Jam and really willing to commit.

4 Know help yourself to ask for help

I have a bad habit of not asking for help on the “my problem”, but asking for help on the “a supposed solution, but I can’t implement.” Do not repeat this error. Exemplifies the most of how you want the end result, this will allow the best and easiest solutions are presented. Or even make you discover that there is no problem to solve.

5 Sound Feedback is very important in games

If your team are not have a responsible for sound, start the next Jams with their proper collection of sounds already at hand. What about the soundtrack, in the Newsground you find awesome options with Creative Commons musics.

6 Optimize little things in advance

Clean folders, programs, workspace icons, a good screen capture application creation gifs. Webcam and messengers for long distant brainstorming. Make sure your machine is not going through a addware infestation. :(

7 SAVE ALL THE TIME, set a very aggressive auto-save… 

8 Don’t go mistaking Paradise For that home across the road. 

Thanks for read and sorry my bad english.