VOIDBREAK

by pacific
co-authored: @place

WELCOME TO VOIDBREAK . . .

If there's no way out, make your own.


COMMENTARY:

This game is largely unfinished, mostly due to a domestic situation out of both mine and @Place’s control. We have essentially been travelling to whatever local cafés/libraries/hotels are open to work on our game. We are nowhere near done but honestly… I’m proud as heck of what we’ve accomplished, especially given the circumstances the past several weeks have presented us.

This is our third game jam, but our first time doing everything by ourselves. We have limited programming knowledge and are still learning, but we tried our hardest and, I mean, PowerPoint isn’t entirely ideal for these things, but damn if it didn’t work out in the end! @Place did all of the art/assets/level design and I did all of the SFX and some demo music.

We even have concept art for future stages… which means that this game won’t be unfinished for much longer! We might not have been able to finish our game in three days, but we’re determined to see it through until the end! We have ideas for other stages that we’re extremely excited to implement. We’d love it if you stuck around to check on our progress, even after the jam.

#### Now, I’d like to continue to our (quick) post-mortem for LUDUM DARE 45!

PROS:

- We…

- Created something despite a terrible situation out of our control

- Utilized what knowledge we had in a short span of time

- Have no shortage of concept artwork thanks to @Place

- Have sound effects to be implemented into later versions of the game

- Made a consistent aesthetic that helped us generate ideas based on the jam’s prompt

CONS:

- We…

- Did not finish… But we WILL!

- Had an unclear direction for where to go with the game’s music

- Have a very basic understanding of Java/html between the both of us and were not confident enough to code for this jam

- Were limited by the lack of collision on PowerPoint 2019

- Are in the midst of a not-stellar living situation and most of the jam was spent trying to find places to dev between our jobs

MAJOR TAKEAWAYS:

We are happy we actually made something! Unfinished or finished, we worked as a boyfriend/girlfriend team and created a working proof of concept!

- We want to learn coding so that our game development process can only IMPROVE!

- I want to improve my knowledge of music theory to better create music based around a theme.

- We need to find a stable place to be creative… hopefully that will be soon!!

- We can’t wait to rock the house for our second LUDUM DARE JAM… Ludum Dare 46!!!

Comments5

OSBooter
OSBooter7 Oct 2019, 22:28
Wow it's surprising to see a PowerPoint game!
Pacific
Pacificauthor7 Oct 2019, 22:30
@osbooter Thanks! Place and I love PowerPoint for animating and deving! Hope you enjoyed!
mao
mao7 Oct 2019, 22:57
The music doesn't seem to play. Does it need to be in a specific location?

Here are my thoughts: The concept is really interesting, especially with being implemented in Powerpoint and all. I'd like to see where this goes.

However, even though the concept is interesting, there isn't really a whole lot to show for it. There are only three levels, none of which present a big challenge. Even though the music didn't play in the game for some reason, I did download it and give it a listen, and, um... it's not exactly pleasant to listen to. Maybe that's what you were going for, but you should probably look into having a scale, or melody, or structure of some kind before thematic connections.
Place8 Oct 2019, 00:29
Hi there, and thanks for the feedback! You seem to be pretty experienced with LD, so know that your words aren't falling on deaf ears.

Without saying too much, Pacific and I are faced with an awful living situation and haven't had much opportunity for creative work (though we do make the time when it presents itself). In the maybe seven-or-so hours of actual dev time, we were able to take ideas from the drawing board and give them life. VOIDBREAK is not finished, but its ideas are out there; they're tangible and realized. From the perspective of people who have been terrified of releasing work online, maybe in fear of reading comments like yours, that is far more than we could have asked for.

If you have a few minutes, I'd like to know what you think of my entry to the latest One Hour Game Jam, which serves as a window into how I've come to digest negative feedback:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_8PYnrucx48cj3ZgJ3dECvRrgg64LyyH/view?usp=drivesdk

(Only compatible with PowerPoint, not Google Slides)
mao
mao8 Oct 2019, 02:10
You're right, I was judging this on the expectations I formed with all the completed games. I just saw this in the feed on the main page and thought it looked interesting; I didn't notice it was marked as unfinished. I really do like the concept, it reminds me of the minimalistic puzzle games by Bart Bonte. I'm not a fan of the music, but if it sets the mood you're going for, then keep it. Don't take criticism too hard (especially misguided complaints like my own). The purpose of negative feedback in a game jam is to help you identify what you can improve in the future, not to disparage what you've done.

I like the sandcastle game, it sets a really good example for what you can do with this medium. I found the text speed somewhat slow, but that's just my preference.

So yeah. (rapidly flies away)
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