Get off my shelf!

Description

You are a small cardboard box. Fighting for your place on the shelf! Other (bigger) boxes are trying to conquer it, but you wont let them!

How to play

Action	Key(s)
Move Left	A or <-
Move Right	D or ->
Jump	Space
Power Up	F/E

Controller (works in WebGL)

Action	Key(s)
Move Left	Joystick Left
Move Right	Joystick Right
Jump	A
Power Up	B

Play

WebGL and Windows Versions
Fullscreen is recommended

Post your highscores in the comments! :)

Known Issues

- Rare: You might fly away when using the shield and landing on the ground while other boxes are in your way.
- Very rare: Random bug where you seem to have lost although you did not touch the ground nor did the boxes stack above the barrier.
- Using Forcefield and launching a box into the barrier can cause a Game Over
- Highscore is reset once you go back to the main menu (not when using the restart button on the game over screen)

Features I wanted to add

- Background music (now its just an AC :P)
- Generally improve overall sounds
- 2-3 difficulties which the player can choose from (in this case size of shelf)
- Few menu items could be visually more appealing
- Random rotated boxes (had this on my sheet since the start and forgot about it -.-)
- Check at the barrier that boxes only enter from below (was also on the plan)

Screenshots

Development

Overall a lot better than the last Compo. The last game I did during LD41 (Compo) was a total mess. I didn't manage to follow my plan. This was mainly due to randomly implementing things. I started writing a feature and in the middle of it went to start on another one (because it maybe was somehow related or cooler). Well the result like I said a total mess. This time it worked out a lot better. The core game was done at around half time. Then I carried on implementing some additional features I had in mind right from the start. This also worked out, just one mechanic was changed completely around 5 hours before submission. I was also able to add sounds and a menu this time which was missing completely from LD41.
In general I am fairly happy with the result. Although it is not the greatest idea I do like it and enjoyed play testing quite a bit :).

Day 1

I started out by writing down what came to my mind. Instantly I thought of Super Hexagen. Also storage on hard drives, in parking garages and warehouses came to mind. I did follow a thought about trash cans and keeping the environment clean, but then went on to use the warehouse idea. At first it was supposed to be a kinda endless runner (doodle jump style) where boxes stack up and you follow them to infinity. However I thought this was to basic. While the idea that I finally took is not really that more complex I still think it is something different.
I began by first implementing the basic player controls. As its a cube/box I wanted to do it using physics so it's a lot of wiggly and twisty movements. That was done fairly quick, jumping was another thing. Although the first iteration was already quite close to how it is now, I iterated many times over it. Then I proceeded to get the spawner done. The amount and area where they spawn can all be modified from the inspector. They are calculated once at the start. After finishing the spawner I made a quick and small UI to keep track of the score and the yet to be implemented top barrier. Then (what a surprise) I proceeded to create that barrier. Basically the boxes are not allowed to stack up and reach the barrier. Cause else the storage is full. That was also done quite fast and only got one iteration over the day, because I needed to keep track of multiple objects crossing the line.
The rest of day 1 I actually went ahead and prepared some basic models. Designing the general outline of the scene. The player was then fully designed, as well as the other boxes to kick off the shelf. Also made some texture variations using Substance to give it a bit of diversity.
That was it mostly for day 1.

Day 2

Day 2 I started out by creating the power ups. As the core game was basically done I went ahead and used the time to implement this because I felt like there was enough time. There was, but I did realize I got a bit more hectic while coding, so some things are done a bit dirty now. So note to myself stay structured until the end :P. I proceeded to finalize the scene and added a manu and gameover scene. Also added some sounds I recorded on the site using some old cardboard boxes I had lying around. Those also made it into the final build, so I got some sound going on. Background music/sound is sadly just some nice. I did attempt a few melodies, but I am just way to bad at making music. I tweaked a lot of the settings and added a few more things in some scripts to kinda 'polish' the whole experience. Finally I needed some camera movement and used Cinemachine for that. Worked out great. I like it so much that I also used it for one thing in the menu :). Did some lighting and also some post processing to give the game a nice look. Several hours before the submission I tried the first build which failed (oh no the horrors), but it was just due to some random asset I didn't even use. Removed it and the build went through! Tweaked some of the unity settings and done was a proper build with most settings already in place.

Software Used:

Use	Software
Engine	Unity
Models	Blender
Textures	Affinity Designer/Photo & Substance Designer
Audio	Audacity & Rytmik Studio
Scripts	Visual Studio Code

Build Updates (due to game breaking bugs)

- New version was uploaded due to a game breaking bug (see 2nd comment), causing the main game scene (not the menu) to be mostly black. This occured on chrome and any chrome related (i.e. Vivaldi) browser.