A simple runner about running out of space Try to stay alive for as long as possible, avoid your own trail!
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My compo submission to Ludum Dare 42 “Running out of space”
As soon as I've heard the theme an image flashed in my head - it's a game where you are in space, trying to run out of it while you are running out of space. That was the key to my design which I tried to keep following. Looking at my Trello, allow me to copypaste what I have written in "Game Design"
============================================================================================ Paper Plane is trying to run out of space before it runs out of space(yeah, literally, get the joke?) Space is going to be like a tube but have a visual effect of an endless space. Pressing left/right slides you across a tube(plane is on the inner side), may be simulated with rotation I guess. There is an exit far away, on your way you should get speed up power ups. After you get to an exit, another plane spawns and runs after the last one. Problem is? First plane left a trail in its place, so every other following plane is literally running out of space while being in a space. Final score is decided by overall traveled distance and time you managed to stay alive.
============================================================================================ I also remember my submission from LD41 where nobody managed to finished my game, so that was +1 drive to make an endless loop type of entertainment.
Used: Unity 2018.2 Zenject DOTween Shader Graph Trello Krita
What went right:
Self-management
-> Using Trello I managed to pinpoint all the important points and milestones, what I need to cut down if things go nasty. It really took me 10 minutes to organize what I will refer every hour for the next two days.
Tools
-> Zenject took the pain of dependencies, every time I had to add something there was no "damn how do I even..." feeling
-> Shader Graph allowed me to make a few cool effects easily
What went wrong:
Scope
-> There is just so much I wanted to implement in a given time frame, and yet here I am. Contentwise game is miserable: no music, no models, no testing performed. It's all programmed, except for starry sky texture made in Krita
Tools
-> WebGL build is killing me, I remember having a bunch of problems with it last time. This time it took me almost 4 hours to guess what was wrong, uploaded it at 40 minutes before the deadline. Also some shader problems, halfway through I was able to switch texture on my skybox shader, but at some point in time it stopped working(noticed the bug too late)
The mechanic is a really cool idea, but it takes a while to understand the movement, and, like the others have said, you can just stay in one place. I really like the graphics though; they have real potential!
I agree with mosaic, it should be cooler if you add something to obligate the player to change his place (like powerups for exemple, or collectable items). Nice concept though.
I'm running into the same thing as everyone else really - the game is trivialized by staying in place and then moving a little bit when you return back to the start. I liked the design you put in the description though, pickups that incentivize movement would have definitely brought out the difficulty.
The game is very good looking, and the idea is great and creative, but as mentioned in previous comments- the best way to gain points is to do almost nothing, which takes away a lot of the fun that the game can provide.
Comments16
Keep coding :)