Postm(icrobi)ortem

Howdy all!

The weekend before, I did a short game called Microadventure (didn't find a better name eh). As usual, this post (mortem!) will explain how it went.

The idea

This was my tenth Ludum Dare, so I reused my ideas list from previous editions. Since Tiny Creatures was in the final themes before, I already wrote it:

A blob separated from his network has to roam the microcosm. Stomp on mushrooms, meet unicellular-pluricellular partisans, and defeat the near-invincible Tardigrade in an MMA event (microbe martial arts).

That's pretty much what I did! I found this happens roughly 50% of the time in jams.

How it went

I was more relaxed than usual in my participation. Partly because of good weather outside, also because I have a full time job so I kinda need to rest on weekends. Nevertheless, it forced me to do one thing, and apparently, do it well! Kind of the opposite of my previous game (Super Note Adventure) last month.

As a slime, the protagonist was really easy to animate. I used a technique for movement that looks fun: vary the walking animation speed with the actual walking speed. That sounds really dumb, but once you do that, the blob goes "step… step, step stepstep" because it has a progressive acceleration, and it's much more organic.

Speaking of organic, I think it turned out better phobia-wise than the Colossopteron (which had a giant hairy ant), even though the world setting is as disgusting when you think about it. The zoom and colors certainly helped (I used the Master System palette which has a lot of saturated colors and not much grays/browns).

As soon as the levels were finished, I did the Tardigrade fight in 2-3 hours Sunday morning. I'm not really satisfied with it, since it doesn't have much spice (and only 2 attacks!), but apart from a dominant strategy, nobody complained. I had quite a bit of difficulty in drawing the Tardigrade sprites, because this is a complicated animal. I also drew it on only one layer, I have a technique for drawing complex sprites on a single layer. If you're interested I can share it in a new devlog.

Finally, I chose a completely dumb title, it might be a personal record for my worst game title. Microadventure sounds like something out of a 1980s PC text game. At least it's named! Though Untitled Microbe Game could fit too…

I used Godot 3.x, which you might think it's obsolete. But when the goal is to have fun, nothing is obsolete. Hell, I hesitated with making a text adventure in C. Other tools used include: LMMS, sfxr, Aseprite, Audacity for sound optimization. No drawing tablet for once.

What went right

The game was much better appreciated that I thought. It seems there's a new generation of jammers commenting, which are a bit less critical, let's be honest, but they appreciated "the wacky chunky formula" (maybe I need to find a better term for this game style of mine).

The lack of death and the score/juice system were praised, because it allowed all skills levels to see as much of the game as possible. But, since a rule of thumb is that the game creator is not bad enough at his own game, there were early bugs with negative score on first playtests. Now the minimum is zero, but enemies drop more so you have more by the end. The maximum precisely 99, with perfect play! I know, how frustrating, but I didn't aim for any precise value.

What could have been

I planned Blob to be able to hide in the bushes, like in the Super Note prototype. However, it would be one more source of bugs for not even a necessary mechanic, so it was cut.

Among other cut things, there would be a second level underground (like the current pre-boss section but longer and with its own music), and either a more "MMA-style" tardigrade fight, or a turn-based one just to mess with the gameplay and be like Earthbound (a game which overflows with tiny creatures).

Conclusion

Honestly, when the compo ended, I wasn't very satisfied with the game, to the point I would skip a Ludum Dare or two and focus on other game projects. There's something missing, almost as if I underscoped, for once. Or maybe as if I did a commercial game but not in a good sense. Maybe that's the normal process of being burned out of an entire weekend of game making. Who knows, maybe in a month I'll be all over that microbe platformer idea.

Until then, I'm working on other projects, like a version of Super Note that could last 100 years, and other permacomputing-inspired game stuff. Pretty fun exercise when you think about it, but compared to Microadventure that's another cup of tea.

On that, see ya in the next one!