The Fallen: A Postmortem

This was an interesting Ludum Dare for me, as it was the first time I pulled off a compo entry. Originally, I was going to make a 3d game about being a robot in a dying world (think OneShot but on steroids and with no semblance of mercy, hope, or friendliness) and trying to survive for as long as possible, maybe even finding some way to stay alive indefinitely (e.g, creating a weaker replacement Sun) whilst the odds are stacked against you. The "running out of power" mechanic would be very literal; your character is a robot that relies on power to survive.

But 24 hours into LD, I had made minimal progress; I had an okay health/power/ammo UI, and some decently pretty graphics. But that was it. No mechanics whatsoever. I was like "nah, it'll be fine", but as I was saying that, I was procrastinating and watching Extra Credits instead. Turns out, that was totes worth it. I was watching their episode on the idea of the Minimum Viable Product.

That video basically saved my bacon this LD. Because it was the swift kick to the head I needed; I had scoped WAY too large for a Ludum Dare entry, even a Jam one. So I started over and thought up a new idea. "A top-down game. Hmm, with pixel art? Ooh, and over-complciated power mechanics and basebuilding!" These three ideas combined into what is now known as The Fallen, my entry. I knew at the very least I wanted to have the minimum viable product up and running by the compo deadline, that way if I hadn't actually finished MAKING the game by then, I'd still have a playable thing up and running that just needed content and polish.

It was totally worth it. As it would turn out, The Fallen is one of my best Ludum Dare entries, well, ever. The only other one that I ever felt any draw to post-jam was The Adventures of Cactusman (LD32), and that never really went anywhere because my idea guy/lead artist and I had been on rocky relations for most of 2016 and we never really finished the first of the big post-jam updates.

The Fallen, on the other hand; I've already logged about three hours just playing it outside of LD, just because it's FUN. I'm proud of my shooting mechanics. I'm proud of my basebuilding. I'm super proud of my graphics. I'm proud of the core idea, and I think it can go further. It's GOING to go further.

The only updates I'm going to do during the Judging Period are going to be bugfixes and critical polish, and I'm hoping I don't have anything I actually need to upload, because I do cringe super-hard whenever I have to push a modified copy of the game (e.g, to fix bugs like "win condition is bork because ???", "wiring system locks up for no reason", "bullets don't hit because ¯\\__(ツ)__/¯)", etc) after submission hour is over.

The biggest regret I have about having sprinted for the Compo deadline and making it into a <24-hour Compo entry is simply how many critical polish elements and gamebreaking bugs are still there; like, I wanted BGM, sounds for walking/getting hit, reloading, etc. With that extra day, I might've been able to add those, and make sure it didn't ship with some of the aforementioned gamebreaking bugs.

Once Ludum Dare's over, I'm going to buckle down and start working on a post-jam version, one with more gametypes (e.g, endless mode, co-op, extended mode, etc), more stuff to do (like more buildings, character upgrades and cutomization, etc), and loads more polish. If it's good enough, I might even put it up on Itch for Pay-What-You-Want, maybe w/ a minimum of, like, $1, rather than forcibly free; but that depends on how well-received it is.

All in all, I'm happy about how this Ludum Dare went. I'm going to get back to playing/rating your games (drop me a link in the comments if you want me to play yours), and pondering what I'd like to work on post-jam.