Modus Catapultus on LD36 Jam

Attack enemy forts and catapults with your catapult and supporting units. Use special stones to build/reinforce forts and spawn new catapults.

Movements – WASD or Cursor Keys

Shoot – E/Space hold and release

Switch stones – Q/Shift

Retreat to friendly forts for fixes and resupply.

Jam Entry Page

Development Log

@40m into competition (and 4:40am in the morning here) I read the theme and posted that I’m going to participate

@4h – after crawling web for inspiration, looking at Da Vince sketches, reading about Antikythera mechanism, Rome warfare among other stuff I went to sleep feeling that I have some understanding of a game to build. It is supposed to be a top-down naval warfare game.

*

@8h – waked up, reviewed the sketches and considered the scope to be totally unrealistic. So I’ve changed direction into land-based warfare and simplified it a little.

@9h – changed direction once again to a side-view scrolling artillery-like game that supposed to be about catapults

@14h – have first boxes moving around the screen.

@18h – spent time on tech, that should have been in the toolbox at the beginning – like camera view and rudimentary physics

@20h – stopped and went to bed

*

@30h – development continues

@32h – first shoots have been fired. What should have taken just 2-3 hours (theme selection, basic setup and rudimentary mechanics) actually took more than a day to develop.

@40h – I started to realize that even the basic mechanics can’t be completed on time.

@47h – decided to target the jam

*

@62h – back from work and on track again. Reevaluated the concept, removed some features, layered out 12-step program to make that game playable.

@71h 50m – PANIC, since I’ve just completed all necessary features and having some troubles scp-ing that on the server (As it turned out – I’ve been DoSed at the time)

@72h – I’ve managed to release the game and started to update the Jam post entry for better readability.

Total hours logged in development and playtesting:

Day 1 – 14h

Day 2 – 16h

Day 3 – 9h

What Went Right

Almost nothing actually.

* I’m glad I’ve switched the initial concept, since that allowed me to release some moderately playable prototype at least for the jam deadline.

* Also good that I’ve sticked to Vanilla JS and dropped the idea of using full-features JS game engine – last time I’ve participated 1 year ago (LD33) I failed miserably because spent too much time struggling with technology.

What Went Wrong

* I wasn’t ready for the theme. Tools I’ve selected were better suited for some retro-styled art and I didn’t see at the time how that can work with Ancient technology.

* I wasn’t ready whatsoever in general. Good idea would’ve been to participate in one of miniLDs and in warm-up weekend. Also, it would make sense to get familiar with possible theme list, analyze it and consider at least remotely what kind of game can be done with that particular theme.

* Most activities of Day 1 should have been fit into 2-3 hours at most.

* I probably could have squished couple more hours in development. But more could be achieved by better readiness and better focus on things that are important.

Tools Used

JavaScript + 2d Canvas proved to be simple and reliable to provide needed functionality. No surprises as far as I can remember. All game shortcomings are caused by me, since I haven’t been able to deliver more elaborated art and sound content and left striking holes in the gameplay itself – the decision to block fire on entities overlap is one of these ‘dirty rules’ that ended up in the posted game. And it looks really stupid now, once I play it.

Aseprite is not fitting well for that kind of game.