The more high level the engine, the worse it gets

by ajayajayaj

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.79

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.65

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.71

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.09

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.58

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.67

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.17

Screenshot

I had high hopes for this LD, but I ended up having to be gone for over 16 hours of the weekend, which really sucked. To combat that, I tried using Unity, thinking it would save time.

Spoiler: it didn't.

Anyway, here is what I have, there are a bunch of tetris pieces you can pick up, and when you pick them up, they will go to the top or bottom tetris games. Sadly I cannot figure out how to build tetris properly in Unity, so there are some bugs.

Also, you can't win.

I hope to try again next time and maybe do better. This is 10th anniversary, but sadly my first failure.

Moral of the story, I will never use unity again I have time restraints.

Original Plan

Originally I planned to have a top down shooter game, where when you kill someone, they exploded into tetris pieces, you could then use those tetris pieces to get points by picking them up and playing tetris on the four sides of the cube in the middle

Intructions

WASD to move

Q and E to move the tetris pieces

R to rotate the tetris pieces

Collect tetris pieces and place them to get score

You cannot lose.

Or win.

Credits

Font is Forced Square by Draw Perfect: https://www.dafont.com/forced-square.font

Tools: Unity

Comments17

Seanbeans5 Dec 2017, 23:18

The idea is really cool! I's a pity that you could not develop it completly. Unity can be trickier than it seems...

CatsPawsGames5 Dec 2017, 23:30

Yeah, going with Unity to speed up development can be a double-edged sword sometimes, especially with simple ideas. I feel your pain. Still great job on actually finishing a game.

Ajayajayajauthor5 Dec 2017, 23:32

@seanbeans Ya, I tied using colliders mainly, and sadly that didn't work out

Wilco5 Dec 2017, 23:32

By giving the player control over when (and on which playside) the tetris pieces start moving on their own, they can make it as easy on themselves as possible. Did you have any ideas to increase difficulty?

Ajayajayajauthor5 Dec 2017, 23:35

@wilco I was thinking of maybe making it so that the pieces would slowly follow you (they originally weren't all scattered and would be found by killing enemies).

Thanks for trying out what I have

Jegus96 Dec 2017, 03:04

"You cannot lose".
Yesssss, finally a game I won't suck at!

By the way, it looks like you had a tough time, but you have a viable product in the end. That was pretty nice.
And if you didn't enjoy Unity... take a look at the Godot engine. I moved from Unity and never went back.

MrTroy6 Dec 2017, 07:17

I'd love to see you revisit this concept in an environment you're comfortable with. I'm curious how it would've played in the end. Unity is a monster to learn at first. I found that I had to do several small non-game jam projects before being able to output the type of games I do now. I'd say stick with it, if you're really willing to learn. On top of that sometimes you have to throw away the old concepts that you learned to start over again. That's one of the hardest lessons with Unity.

Samusoidal12 Dec 2017, 01:18

"You cannot lose"

But you also can't really win :wink:
I liked the graphics and concept in this one, I'd definitely play a post-jam version. As it is it's more of a prototype.

Ajayajayajauthor12 Dec 2017, 21:04

Thanks @samusoidal ! I updated my description

SaphireS18 Dec 2017, 00:30

that's actually a great idea, shame you lost a chunk of time on the weekend! Would love to see the original version you envisioned, although this is fun too. Great work! :)

Baby Dino Herd18 Dec 2017, 00:37

Really like the idea! Graphics were nice and clean, everything was easy to read. Had some fun playing around with circular Tetris! Being able to win/lose would certainly be a nice next step.

nekoballs20 Dec 2017, 09:32

Fun idea! Sad you didn't get the time you needed for this one.
Looks pretty and retro!

wh05herlock25 Dec 2017, 00:05

This is a really cool idea. It's too bad you couldn't get all the bus worked out etc.

I use unity myself, and I don't have any problems with it. I think you just have to get really used to a game engine before you try to use it in ludum dare, because learning how unity works from the start during ludum dare would be an absolute nightmare.

Local Minimum25 Dec 2017, 10:30

The idea of an a Katamari with inverse objective fused with tetris is a really cool idea. I would think that the objective would be to avoid generating tetris tiles or at least not doing it too fast. I also don't know if it should be as organized as two normal tetrises, but that the pieces that are falling would do so a bit more organically. It makes removing rows rule a bit complex though. Next thing that also would have been fun would have been if there was a gravitational zone that expanded beyond the red area that grew large the more pieces in play you have / larger you are.

PietPtr25 Dec 2017, 12:46

Interesting take on classic Tetris mechanics.

jk500025 Dec 2017, 13:00

I do not understand this game.

Ajayajayajauthor26 Dec 2017, 03:34

@local-minimum originally it was on all 4 sides, but the left and right side were removed because of bugs in the last 10 minutes :/. Thanks for your suggestions though :)

Other games by @ajayajayaj

compo

At least it's not death...

★3.42

★3.59

★3.50