Magic Lumberjack

Hello everybody!

My brother and I would like to present you our game. “Magic Lumberjack” is our second game. We have participated in the previous LD with two friends but this time we were just us.
We learnt a lot in the previous LD and we did again in this LD. Now we are waiting for your comments to keep improving since we are just starting (LD 33 was our first game ever).

We are from Spain and LD starts here at 3 am so we kept awake to see the theme and start the brainstorming. What a surprise when we saw that there was a tie! I imagine that all the participants had similar feelings.
So… We started thinking and some ideas came up. Enough for that first day and after sleeping for some hours and with the mind rested, we decided the game. At the beginning we were thinking about both possibilities. Later we thought about creating something using just one of them… but two button controls was too abstract, too vague and too many things could fit it. For instance, almost every game controlled by the mouse fits that theme and we preferred to work with the challenge of the theme selection. The challenge of having an idea related to something more specific selected by the community… And we did. We decided to do both themes.

At that point, we had actually thought about the lumberjack. Plants grow. We know that a lot of games were going to explore the idea of plants growing… but what happen when plants grow? That we have a lot of wood!!! So we need a woodcutter! And probably, there are people that thinks the same and that’s why we need to give him personality. We need a lumberjack. So Miguel started the initial designs.

And I started the mechanics. The first thought about the game could be… “ok, just two buttons, simple” but we wanted something special. A challenge for users (Yes, we love challenges) and that’s why we decided to do an infinite game. That means an infinite tree but in order to do a funny game, the user have to have multiple possibilities; the tree has to have multiple thickness.

And the tree has to be as special as the lumberjack, with variables shapes but the game has to be infinite. So we have to generate an infinite tree, with different shapes and everything should be smooth.
And… is that all? If we include the different animations, UI… could be enough work for two people but we needed something else, something deeper, and the fruits came up. Three different fruits (blue, yellow and purple) with extra powers: Extra strength (selfexplanatory), Extra precision (the “right cut” range is increased) and Extra life (if you miss the hit, you have another try) but these powers are optional. The player chooses to eat the fruits (second button) and in fact, if you get used to the strength needed, the extra strength complicates the game. In this situation people can think “ yeah, that is right so I will not eat the extra strength fruit” and here comes the last mechanic. Every game, each fruit color gives a random power. The player can risk the game and eat a fruit, that fruit can give an extra life and that is a lot… but the fruit can give you extra strength and in that case, the player has to be very careful.

What went well: We are very happy with the result based on our experience. We tested the game with some users and they were very happy. A bit skeptical at the beginning (“Mmmm so I have to hit the tree… Oh! It is very difficult! I am bad at this game”) but 3-4 tries later they were trying to beat their record and kept playing, absorbed by the game. That was exactly our objective. We recommend you to play with friends and see who can cut more chunks!

What went wrong: We planned to add more effects, sounds. Do it “crazier, extravagant”, but the time is what it is and in fact, we are satisfied.

We hope you enjoy the game!!!!

Play Here