Post Mortem for 'What's Under Base 69'

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/whats-under-base-69

I'm very happy with what I had done for my game! However, it was only the first half of the game, which was going to be the tutorial for the second half. You were supposed to be able to fight the giant worm in an exciting helicopter escape, but I got as far as RIGHT BEFORE you do that before I ran out of time.

Before I share the whole plan I had, here's some fun facts:

• The music playing when showing you the movement controls is just me beat-boxing with some filters, because I didn't know how to create that beat in LMMS (I'm still pretty new with it)

• I wanted those big buildings to parallax scroll to give it more depth and be more ominous, but I couldn't get it to work.

• ALL sound effects were made by me with my microphone!

• The [REDACTED] wake sound is just me again, adding some reverb and down-pitching it a bit, while also slowing it down.

• The splash sound is just me at the kitchen sink plopping my hand in a couple of times until I got the right sound. Then I layered it on itself a couple of times and bass boosted it.

• The chain sound on the treasure chest was a combination of my metal phone stand being flipped around, and my dog Mia's chain being dropped in my hand.

• You can cannonball into the water if you are going fast enough and press SPACEBAR. It was going to be a hidden bonus for when the game was going to have a scoring system

• The whole idea for the game is kind of a spiritual successor to Diving Simulator 2015, which both games are inspired by Trosh: The Movie: The Game. The kind of minimalist, multi-minigame kinda format which I think is perfect for a short Ludum Dare game!

With all that said, here is the original idea I had for the game, ripped directly from my MasterPlan .plan file!

======

Gameplay Breakdown:

The player and a helicopter pilot fly over an
ocean guarded by a some sort of military thing
(in the distance). The goal is to get some treasure
at the bottom of the ocean.

1. The player warms up with a little dance before
putting on the diving suit. (This secretly warms the
player up to the movement keys before the game starts)

2. The player charges a jump from the helicopter. Too
much charge flings them into the blades, which kills them.
The player restarts at this phase so they dont have to
do the dance again.

3. As the player swan dives into the cold waters,
they have to dodge seagulls that are in the way.
The number of dead seagulls counts against you
at the end >:L
This is a callback to Trosh: The Movie: The Game, where
you kill birds on your way down for points.

4. The player can get a secret bonus if they press
the spacebar right before they hit the water,
to do a cannon ball.

5. The player has to dodge mines and fish in the first
layer of the ocean.

6. The player has to dodge security drones in the
second layer. They simply move left and right, but faster.

7.  The player has to refill his tank quick! Grab some of
those... Oxygen bubbles? Where are those coming from?
Ohhhh, doesn't matter!

8. You enter a chasm, and on each side of the rocky
walls is a hot steam vent you have to avoid. This
is the last obstacle before the treasure.

If you get to the bottom without hitting anything on
the way down, you get a nice reward. Hitting
anything just reduces a predefined score, where
hitting EVERYTHING would mean +0 points

9. You finally get to the bottom! Now you must move
a crosshair over the corners of the chest to prepare
it for lift. You get bonus points depending on how 
quickly you finish this.

10. It's stuck?? You mash the spacebar to pull it out.
The harder the player mashes the more points they get

You dislodge the chest, and it sails up to the
helicopter! ...But somethings wrong. Suddenly, the eyes
of a giant sea worm open on the floor. Turns out the
chest was it's favorite face-piercing and it wants
revenge! You pull the cord on your suit, causing it
to rapidly inflate. You now have to do the dodging
you did in reverse, and faster!

11. You sail up past the steam vents as the worm
follows you, eerily not aggresive yet, but its
intentions are clear.

12. You dodge the security drones, which get eaten
as they sound the alarm.

13. You dodge the mines and the fish, which also get
eaten.

14. You finally surface! (With some wicked decompression
sickness I bet) You rapidly deflate the suit at the
peak of your arc to launch yourself back onto the
helicopter... If you time it perfectly, you can launch
yourself directly into the blades a second time ;)

15. Sirens blaring, you and your pilot quickly fly away
with the treasure on board. The sea worm chases you.
It's roaring and firing toxic slime at the helicopter.
You have to dodge them to avoid losing points.

16. The military is trying to shoot both you and the
worm! You have to dodge slime from the left AND 
rockets from the right!

17. You've had enough! You grab the giant machine
gun and start shooting at the worm! You control the
crosshair now while also controling the helicopter

18. The worm finally dies, collapsing back into the ocean
and sinking to the bottom. Your pilot finally gets
a chance to go up, but you have to shoot the rockets
that follow you.

19. We escape with the treasure! We land on a boat
and prepare to unload it. But it's super heavy! You
mash the spacebar one last time. If you do it enough
you safely unload the chest. Otherwise it falls and
breaks open.

You open the chest to reveal... Naughty magazines of
floating islands? This is apparently what you wanted
because you both are blushing like idiots.

The score screen comes up now! You beat the game :)

Thank you for reading! Here is the timelapse of me making the game on YouTube, featuring my friend Pitfall's amazing chipstep music! (Not included in the game he's just really cool, go check him out >:L )