PostMortem C=AVERUNNER

This was my first and definitely not last LudumDare. It was a fun and challenging experience that I try to document here.

English is not my first language so read this with a thick german accent (if you like) and it will be funnier.

In The Beginning

I’m a frontend dev/artist/gamer. I was always interested in modding, level editing and also tried some flash-stuff back in the days, but for making games on my own I always had one problem: I’m not a good programmer. Everything I tried got over my head pretty fast and I gave up.

This year I intended to make one game a month. My first was a quiz made with HTML/jQuery and it was fun but definitely not as complex as making a “real” game. After struggeling for months to find a game making workflow and trying out different frameworks, a friend recommended me Construct2 and I gave it a go. Its the most perfect tool for my needs (at the moment): I can manage everything in one application, no programming, no staring at messy code trying to find a bug…

I installed it wednesday evening before LD29, did a tutorial over the next 2 evenings and started saturday morning with C=AVERUNNER.

The Game

So there I was. No idea what I’m doing and only 48h time.

Runner – It had to be simple so I thought “random” generation with an increasing difficulty and no endgame was an elegant way to comprehend my lack of knowledge in Construct2.

Gameplay Elements – Since I always loved the Bit.Trip Runner games I decided to try something like this with a more simple, casual approach.

Sound – First I had bfxr sounds but with the rest of the game getting more polished I realized I needed something better. I love the SID chip so I switched to samples of the C64 (hence the C= in the name)

Beneath the Surface – I couldn’t think of a deeper meaning behind the theme that was simple to do so I just went underground, added some darkness (too much probably), glowing shrooms (that irritated most players) and a lot of evil, pointy rocks (too hard to see). (Also: maybe finding beautiful musical harmony beneath the surface of the dangerous and dark cave is the real meaning gesticulatesartsy.)

I learned working with C2 (mostly how not to), prototyped & tested, draw and redraw a lot of sprites & backgrounds, learned more about C2, tried to animate a character (and failed), cutted samples and so on… After about 20 hours, a lot of trial and error, facepalms and heurekas I had something that felt like a game.
A messy, buggy one but I’ts mine and I love it (:

The pace is too slow, the contrast too low and the rythm is wonky as hell because I forgot about testing early enough in more browsers and used a stupid way of syncing the spawning of objects – but overall I’m happy how it turned out and I love playing it. When the beat starts and nice melodys and patterns take form it’s a fun experience – until I’m too fast and the jumps get impossible (:

The Aftermath

I’m hooked.
I bought a C2 license, there is already a prototype for C=AVERUNNER2 and an almost finished entry for the #lowrezjam.

Fun Fact

The first entry that I really loved was from a guy in my town! After playing I clicked on his twitter link and my jaw literally dropped when I saw it. We met last week, talked about nerdy stuff and drank beer. Yay!

Thanks for reading!
Try the game here and take a look at my website over here if you like.

(btw my highscore is 129)