Postmortem “InVS” or How I didn’t learn Flash Punk.

Before I get into the Post Mortem I’ll introduce the game itself.

I made a game this Ludum Dare called InVS (pronounced inverse).

You can play/rate the game at this universal resource locator.

On with the show…

I’ve been pretty slack these past few Ludum Dares. 2 Ludum Dares ago I made a game called Tree. Many people said it was not a game, more an interactive experiment, or a toy, or an amusement. I seem to have a different definition of game.

I had many ideas for Tree and I ran out of time. I cut the “game” part out of the game and it became simply an application that let you draw trees. There was no goal or missions or quest or win condition. But you can play with it. And it was released with the intention of the player whimsically crafting a tree, unburdened by a score or a purpose.

The game is actually better that way. The game I had originally intended to make had more hooks, was probably more fun, possible addictive. It was going to be a micro management game, where branches, leaves, fruit etc cost resources and leaves collect resources.

But once I could draw the tree by forking branches, that was actually more interesting in it’s simplicity. The expectations of a game possibly ruins Tree. Playing tree is like playing with your food or your hair. Noodling.

Is it a waste of time to try to define abstract concepts? I am interested in games that are toy universes, so that when the system is understood by the player they can explore a mathematical truth that is not defined by words but actions and interactions.

Because of this, most game projects I have worked on have been procedural in nature. I like the idea that InVS is 26Kb, that the sound and graphics are produced from the same logic that powers the interaction. When I work on games now I try to remove distractions and just represent the system as best as I can.

I thought my simple geometric graphics were a crutch though. I have started lots of projects and not finished many. So this Ludum Dare I decided to use FlashPunk for the first time. The theory was that if I use a framework I could spend more time on the game design and less time on the “boring bits”.

Minimalism

The theme was minimalism and I began to type any ideas that came to my head. My initial idea was a:

Fascist Dictatorship that enforces Minimalism where it makes no sense.

Plot Concept:
Destroys anything organic or natural

“I had a dream! That the world was designed! That everything was logical!
That everything was beautiful. There was no chaos! There was just black, white aluminum.
and buttonless surfaces.”

“Even when we destroy chaos, we do it beautifully.”

“Nature can be beautiful but nature is also disease”

“Wipe out the beasts, the plants, the inconsistent and the strange.”

Game mechanics:

As you win the background becomes more citylike and minimalist.

When you die your body turns to grey and forms a wall that the nature has to breakthrough to move in your direction.
Game is like a tug of war. You can lose, nature can win. But you can also wipe out nature.

Graphically:
Painterly chaotic (Jerry’s Map) vs Organised Pixels
Grid vs Non-Grid
… Sketching …

Designs for Fascist units
Vector, Smooth

Design for nature/chaos
PASTICHE! Paper sketches, Paint.NET, Photographs, Procedural Graphics/Colours

The idea was to procedurally generate the race that was obsessed with simplicity, design and minimalism. They would have clean hard lines. And they would wipe out the organic, random natural world. I thought I’d create nature out of mixed media and somehow roll it into Flashpunk. You would have a contrast of art styles for each side.

Oddly enough I never drew one organic creature. I did all the art for the above characters procedurally in Flash. The real battle was between procedurally vector based graphics and hand painted rasters. And procedural won. I scratched this first game idea because the game wasn’t very interesting. I felt it would be a game that was trying to be clever but not actually enjoyable.

The texture for the landscape were just mixed cuts of a photograph of a leaf I took.

After I gave up on that idea I had lost most of the first day. And I had my head in my hands while my girlfriend was trying to give me ideas to make the game more interesting. All her ideas were really cool. But I didn’t want to add anything to the design. I just wanted a more interesting concept.

Getting sick of Paint.NET. Wish I had Photoshop and CS5/6 Installed So I could onion skin animations.
This is so ridiculously difficult to do the simplest things. I’ve got to think of something that will let me
be quick.

I’m considering going hand drawn, cutting out pieces of paper and no animations.
It might ruin my idea, I am sick of the theme and my current idea sucks. I’m just going to get something on the screen
and iterate.

Maybe make a 2d shooter. I don’t care anymore.

Ok Completely New Idea

I started thinking about a game idea. Something to do with deflecting bullets of opposite colours and objects changing colour when they collide. It was vague but interesting. That led me on the path towards this.

At this point I didn’t really know what I was making. I didn’t have an idea as such. I had a feeling. I feel like I was just carving away, getting to the core of an idea. And it was hard. One choice on how an object interacted with another had huge repercussions for many other follow on interactions.

The name came at the very beginning:

INvs

Two players.

Black VS White

Shield Deflects Projectiles of the Same Colour
Projectile of different colour changes the colour of the shield but passes through
You can shoot your own shield too

If you get stuck you can shoot a wall infront of you to kill yourself.

Spawn at a random spot. No score, just an end game winner. So they don’t feel punished.

4 directional Shield, Shooting
???Level shrinks with each kill?
???If the border crosses you when it moves inwards, you die.

Split Screen//Won’t implement because it might take too long.
Move on a grid of nodes

Using a shield on a node, removes the node, and the shield only lasts as long as you are not moving.

Players and projectiles wrap the map

Throughout the process I forgot the idea multiple times but in the the final game ended being very true to that original idea.

In InVS everytime you kill your opponent, the map shrinks. As the map shrinks the pace of the game increases.

Projectiles wrap the screen, so the fact that the size of the map is decreasing effectively means you have less time to avoid

an incoming bullet.

Players can place walls around them. Shooting a wall of the opposite colour, changes the colour of the wall.

You can walk through a wall if it is the opposite colour to yourself too. But once you pass through, the wall changes colour.

This means it is easy to escape but escape comes with the risk of trapping yourself.

If you are hit by a projectile of your own colour, you will die, but there is no penalty other than a respawn. The map only shrinks if you are hit by your opponents colour.

Individual games are short, anywhere between 20 secs to 4mins.

I am just rambling on and on. I haven’t slept for 30 hours so maybe this will all make more sense tomorrow.

– Canyon