How I spent 48h making Vibrant City

Ludum Dare is my favorite game jam and this time I made a game called Vibrant City which you can play and rate here.

Friday Dec 5th 9PM – Theme Announcement

As soon as the theme (Entire Game on Single Screen) was announced I was a bit confused like everyone else and started pondering whether it is a theme or a constraint. I remember participating in one of the global game jam and one of the constraint was this ‘Entire Game on Single Screen’ but whatever. The theme is announced and I have to make a game in 47h 50m. So I started walking around my little apartment trying to think about new ideas and/or existing games that can be played on a single screen. To no one’s surprise the first few games that came to mind were Pong, Pacman, Tetris, Space Invaders :D. As I progress through the time period I started thinking about brawlers, tower defense, 4p local multiplayer shooters, bullet hell and survival game where you have to fight waves over waves of enemies. Nothing was really clicking to me at this point.

I was getting tired walking around when suddenly I had this idea of a beat’em up game inspired by movie Edward Scissorhands. The player will role play a character with Scissorhands and can switch hands to like hammerhands, axehands, bullethands etc etc. This sounded really cool and different to me so I started thinking about it in detail. A beat’em up game is not quite fun to play if it is missing different combos and variety of attacks. Having different combos means lots of art and animations and this is just for the main character. The same follows for all the AI characters that I am going to have in the game. For someone who is not very fluent in art and animation, this sounded a little bit out of scope to me in 48h. And I went back to the drawing board.

After a while I was enlightened with this rooftop shooter idea. I immediately discarded it thinking that “meh, its not good enough” but then I gave it a little more time and attention and I realized its not actually that bad and it could be a really good game. So this was it, I finalized the initial plot and started working.

Friday Dec 5th 10:30PM – Work Begins

I began by doing some initial research on different rooftop views that could influence my level design. I started working on first draft of level design plus some initial player movement for the next 4 hours or so. This was important to have as it will give me an idea whether I am going in the right direction or not. Fortunately, it went well and I was happy with the implementation. I can sleep well now :).

Nap Time – zzzzzzzzzzz

Saturday Dec 6th 8:30AM – Resume Working

Since I already had the basic player movement working from last night, I picked up from there and implemented player navigation from rooftop-to-rooftop. Then it was just non-stop working on level refinement, adding graphics and shaders, adding civilians and vibrants, implementing spawn logic, game progressions, menus/UI and various other stuff. Fast forward to Sunday Dec 7th 3:30AM, I had the game playable with some bugs here and there and some balancing issues. I was completely exhausted by that time as I was working non-stop since morning. Seeing the game in such good standing, I decided to take a nap for few hours.

Nap Time – zzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday Dec 7th 8:30AM – Final Day

Woke up, played the build from last night and read my todo list to remind myself where I was. The next 4 hours just flew by in play testing, bug fixing, polishing, UI and balancing gameplay. Then comes the sound and music part. I spend some time on freesound website to find the right sounds for my game. It took me a while to download them and mixing them up using Audacity. By the time I was done integrating the sound it was already 4PM. I still had plenty of time (~5h) to playtest and fix the remaining issues. I spent next two hours or so playing the game several times in the Unity Editor, in the browser and also the standalone build.

Everything was looking good and I was super excited to submit my entry. As the hour hand of the clock approaches 7PM I was done with my submission (YES! 2h early :D). It was an exhilarating moment. I feel accomplished!!

What went right:

1. I manage to keep the scope of the game doable. I didnt feel any rush or panic during the 48h.
2. I am glad I didnt chose to build a game that is art/animation heavy else I would have definitely regret it.
3. I wanted to try something different. Something I have never build before and I manage to achieve it.
4. I slept well without getting bothered from the incomplete work which is very rare :p

What went wrong:

1. The writing in the game is not that great and I should have spent more time on it.

Thanks a ton LudumDare for this wonderful 48h of creation and fun!!

Thanks again for playing and rating Vibrant City!!!

Till Next Ludum Dare!!!

Anshul

PS: I am gonna start prototyping that Scissorhands game soon!!