Only one week in which to make a game. Not much time at all: a short dash, top speed all the way, exhausting and exciting. It can be a competition concept at once intriguing, enthusing and intimidating.
Things started on a somewhat mixed note. On the surface, the topic didn't much interest me: as much as I enjoy the aesthetics of the cuter entries produced by others, it wasn't a style that I particularly wanted to make. However, I have some experience in twisting topics to my liking, and had already had it in mind to do so--and thankfully arrived in short order at the thought of creating a horror experience.
One of my first thoughts was a first-person house-exploration, taking some inspiration from P.T., but the issue of content creation--in particular the thought of creating a house of any useful size--put me off.
The other idea that I had was to create a rogue-lite--a genre with which I had been toying in concept at the time. The main question was one of gameplay: my previous conceptions of a rogue-lite had focussed on the standard action-centric fare of the genre, but action makes for poor horror in many cases--after all, the power to destroy the objects of one's fears can greatly weaken those fears.
But I worked on it a little more, and realised that I could build such a game around the idea of escaping rather than combatting; that combat could be a last-resort, or the province of particularly skilled players. (And I might note that players who take that route might find a nasty surprise waiting for them in the final version of the game... ;P)
I started to make notes, jotting down possible enemy toys (one of my first, and still my favourite, both in concept and execution, was the crocodile toy), room types, potential props, and collectable items.
Once I had enough that I was confident that the concept was sound, I set to work: I sat down with my template code and started building.
Through the days the game changed, primarily in features dropped:
- I originally planned to have "administrator"/"staff" rooms, in which the items were found, perhaps bought from the spirits of the long-dead administrators of the orphanage; this was pared down to an empty dorm-room (another room-type that I'd hoped to have anyway) in which a single object appeared, chosen at random.
- One of my earliest ideas involved rooms that were pitch-black, or nearly so, perhaps lit intermittently by windows, possibly by lightning-flashes, and players would be able to collect candle-stubs with which to light a single room per stub; this fell away, in part because I decided that it meshed very poorly with the idea of avoiding the mobile toys.
- I had hoped to have a variety of items available, but the list was reduced to a bare four.
- I had several enemy concepts; only three made it into the final game, simply by virtue of not having time to implement more.
- The levels were originally intended to be more varied, and more interactive: offhand, I recall mirrors that showed glimpses of shadowy figures, and simply more types of prop than the tables that made it in.
- Various concessions were made in terms of art--for example, the very first room is intended to represent the orphanage grounds just outside the main entrance, and, unlike the current, rather hacky implementation of that, was originally to have a custom building-facade and door, fences to either side, and a more detailed depiction of the ground.
Yet even with all of those elements dropped, I like the game that I created: it's not as I'd hoped that it would be, but I think that it's at least somewhat fun and has some aesthetic quality. While there are several elements that I'm not happy with, there are others that I rather like.
At last my deadline loomed. Final changes were made (the options menu, although long-intended, was added only late, and the options to alter the game's resolution and switch to and from fullscreen only barely squeezed in). I made builds, and prepared to submit my entry.
The actual building of distributable versions went fairly easily: having used it before, I have a process in place for building with Panda, and I was fairly comfortable with building so late. What kept tripping me up was forgotten things: in particular realising that an innocuous-seeming change was causing the game to crash, and discovering that I had dummied out two of the three levels.
(The latter I discovered when going back to take some screenshots. If I hadn't done that, I might have submitted the game as it was...)
To conclude, a few thoughts:
- I'm particularly happy with the room generation--I still enjoy seeing the odd twists and passages that it produces, and I'm rather happy with the code that prevents the formation of unreachable islands (even if it does fail sometimes, prompting a complete re-generation of the room ^^; ).
- My favourite enemy, both mechanically and aesthetically, is one of the first that I came up with: the crocodile; I rather like the effect of is tail following after it, and especially like its AI and movement.
- It's a pity to have compromised on certain elements, but under time pressure expedience may demand it.
- The competition makes at the least for a decent object lesson in just how short six days is in which to make a game.
So, what's next?
Over the next few days I might work (at a rather less arduous pace than in the competition!) on a "version 2" of my game: more room types, more enemies, more interactivity, more polish and re-worked gameplay. I don't intend to build from scratch--for one thing I'm actually fairly happy with my entry, and think it to be a fairly good base from which to start.
But first, I think, a rest...
Strange how similar our original idea was!
I, too, was scared of scope when coming up with a roguelike...
I'm glad you're happy with your entry! And I'm even more glad I ended up going a different route. We ended up making two very different game and I believe that's the most desirable outcome.
I'll be playing your game either tonight or tomorrow evening, I'll be sure to let you know of my comments then (I'll be judging as many entries as possible in the early week).
Good job!