The Coldest Cabin, a Postmortem.
> Play The Coldest Cabin <
Game Description
In The Coldest Cabin you play a hunter trapped in his cabin by an incoming snow storm; if you leave, the bitter cold will wear you down in just a few minutes. If you stay in, you will soon run out of food and collapse dead from starvation. There’s cans of food out in the woods… but this storm brings with it supernatural enemies. As soon as you use the radio, the timer starts for helicopter rescue, if you survive you “win” (fade to white). You’re free to be stubborn and not call for help, but you will die eventually (fade to black).
What went wrong
I spent so long working on the core mechanics and art stuffs, that I didn’t have any time to play test the game well. Didn’t even consider making the game a shooter with enemies until well into day 2, so they were extremely rushed, with most of my time spent animating the shotgun! (made with probuilder objects.) I don’t know if the timers are fair, unfair, but the feedback on that seems mostly okay. The food is hidden too well, I’m afraid, and it’s not clear enough that you can “use” the radio to call for a helicopter rescue, in my opinion. The win condition doesn’t have text, and the death screen doesn’t automatically prompt with a restart button, all things I just ran out of time for. Comments state that the restart button I added in the final minutes of the 48th hour breaks things… Should have spent a bit more time on overall user experience well before submission hour. XD
WebGL build was a complete failure and a waste of precious time.
What went right
I’m really happy with how the shotgun feels; all that snow spraying around and the camera shake feels nice and juicy to me. The LUT material I came up with for the color correction camera shader; it adds so much detail that really isn’t there, simply by being lower res than a standard LUT. Amazing. Unity 5.5 particles are so nice to work with, look at all that noise!
Considering how I decided that my game needs enemies well over halfway into the jam, I’m quite happy with how they turned out. I do wish I had time to make them hear the player and react to the shotgun sounds.
I used the Playmaker and Behavior Designer for the entire game logic, which I had been learning bits of for another project. This was an excellent full-project run down for me, and I learned a great deal, which is what LDJAM is all about, right?
Other thoughts
I’m currently hacking in a multiplayer mode, which I hope to have up in a few days for extra bonus fun with friends.
As always with LDJAM, I learned something new, had a great time, and feel like I can pat myself on the back for a job well done. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy playing The Coldest Cabin!
> Play The Coldest Cabin <
Source: ludumdare.com archive