Making a game in 48 hours! - GMTK Game Jam 2020 (Indie Game Devlog)

hey there how's it going I do a lot of game jams but I tend not to do the larger game jams because they typically use a 48-hour format which I'm personally just not a fan of basically every time I do a 48-hour game Jam I lose two consecutive days because I just become really obsessed so with that here's how I spent the last 48 hours as I'm starting writing and recording the staff log about four hours after submissions have closed I'm a big fan of the game makers toolkit YouTube channel I've missed the GMT K Game Jam the last couple of years due to not being able to lose the whole weekend because of other obligations and commitments this year however I have nowhere to go so I figured it was about time I live in California so for me the jam began Friday at noon and like the thousands of other participants I watched the premiere live and what do we get out of control Game Jam themes can usually be pretty hit and miss but this one I think is actually pretty good it opens the door to so many possibilities how do you define control what does it mean to be out of it for me sometimes after hearing a theme an idea just springs into my head really fast other times it feels like I have to pry it out with serious effort right off the bat with this theme it's the latter there was just far too many possibilities running through my head but I streamed feedback for viewers games on Fridays so I wasn't able to start working on it then anyway I had already accepted that I was going to be losing at least 5 to 6 hours at the start of the jam because my usual Friday streaming schedule started an hour after the theme announcement so I let the theme dance around in my head all throughout the stream and afterwards I had some food hung out with my family and ruminated on what to do with this theme around 9 o'clock I finally had something my plan was to combine two mechanics I've used in other game jams actually a while back I made a game about a robot that can't stop running for the 8-bits to infinity to button jam and a robot running around bumping into things was pretty much all my brain could think of when I kept thinking about out of control my brain works in weird ways sometimes but in that game you controlled the robot by jumping and turning around so I started thinking how would I get it through the level if I couldn't control it at all that's when the other mechanic I'd previously used popped into my head I made a game called ghosts took my camera for another APIs to infinity jam and in that game the player used the mouse to place level objects that they could then use to complete the levels so what if I make a puzzle style game with run away robot where you as the player have to build the path to get them out I was a little hesitant because it's very similar to a premise I've used already but I pretty quickly got over that when I realized I was already nine hours down and I should really start making something all right I got a vague concept it's time to get to work as with every jam I started with a blank construct project and set in on the basics to get started I had to add in the quote-unquote player I guess I'll refer to it as a bot from now on for some fun I added the robot monkey sprite from one of my other games because I thought I might actually use it to save some time the jam does allow you to use artwork that you have the legal rights to use so you can use pre-existing art I eventually chose not to and created all the art during the jam but that's why my placeholder art here is a robot monkey I added the bots and gave it the platform behavior as if it was going to be a player character then I just turned off the control inputs I set it up to always run right until it hit a wall in which case it switches direction and runs to the left when it hits a wall on that side it switches and goes to the right as long as there's a wall on both sides this little dude will go forever cool now how do we make it do something else why with one of my favorite things to add to any game of course a jump pad man do I like adding jump pads to games if the bot comes into contact with it it sets its vector Y to be negative and it works like a jump I then added some items that will either speed up or slow down the bot as it passes over them I didn't have a solid idea of how the levels would actually be laid out yet so I started testing out a camera with an 8 Direction movement and the ability to zoom in and out that way the player can look around wherever they needed to while the bot ran around but it felt kind of clunky and I really didn't like having to chase the bottom round I already needed to make a system where the player can place items into the level which I knew was gonna be harder than it sounds so I made the decision that this would be a one screen puzzle game thus eliminating the added complexity and most likely issues this camera was going to cause the bot is now running around and I have some elements in for it to interact with now I need to make it so that the player has a way to get those items and put them into the world thus beginning many hours of making an inventory system which I'm not great at my plan was that there would be four slots at the top of the screen each level he was the player would be presented with different items to use to get the bot to the exit if you've already played the game you know that there are actually three slots and they always have the same three items in them just different amounts I'll get into why that is later but the original plan was that there would be more items and ops for each level by the way if you haven't played the game yet you may want to pause and you'll play it I'm warning you now that there will be spoilers in the footage shown later and if you can play it and rate it I would be super appreciative I made the inventory slots modular I just fill out these fields and it will populate the HUD when the level starts which I have to say I'm pretty happy about in ghosts took my camera the player could pick up an item and place it once it was placed that's where it stayed but I didn't want the player to have to completely restart the level if they play something wrong like I said that's how I had it before and I was never fully happy with that I added the ability to right-click a placed item and erase it and it would add itself back into your inventory I didn't think of it until much later but I should have added the ability to just pick up and move items that have already been placed as well as canceling out an item that's currently being held when I did realize how nice those features would be I was already in the testing phase and well past the point of being able to add them in and still finish the game on time but such as game jams it's just so hard to think of and implement everything you want next up this robot friend needed a way to come to an unfortunate end so I added the scariest thing I could think of a red box with an X on it seriously this thing will mess you up especially after adding some particles oh the humanity it's about midnight at this point and I'm feeling pretty good about what I have so far my usual workflow is to get the base mechanics functioning and then create the art for the main character for me that lets me really see where the game is going and how it will feel I always start with the character silhouette because in pixel art that's what stands out the most also with this game you're not controlling the bot itself so you won't be staring at it the same way you would if this was a normal platformer so the character needs to be clear I tried a couple ideas and kept battling with taking the easy road of just using the robot Monki I already had in I struggled to find a foothold here and I just really wasn't feeling it it was almost 1:30 in the morning so I decided I shouldn't force it I wasn't quite ready for bed yet I usually stay up until around 2:00 anyway so this is normal so I had a little bit of time left before I had to go to sleep I jumped back in to construct and added a few easy features I really loved the cartoon black circle transition it's one of my favorites so that went in then while testing the respawn system I was watching the bots repeatedly run into the death block screen shaking and particles flying but it seemed like it needed more it looked like it was running into a grinder and then just kind of sitting there I created a dead version of the bot that had a bouncing bullet behavior now when the bot hits the death block it's itself to be invisible then it spawns the dead bullet version that sets a random angle for it to fling itself I found this very enjoyable and I watched it over and over again for longer than I care to admit but it was 2:00 a.m. so it was time to call it for the day with a full night's rest I started off by getting back to what to do with the bots character art is one of the most important aspects of any game in my opinion it's the first element that most players will experience and can be a deciding factor on whether or not the person plays your game at all so I like to create cute characters that players can fall in love with and this process always takes me a while I didn't like what I had done last night so I tried out some more ideas I tried this little guy but just wasn't cute enough I still kept going back to the robot monkey but the one thing I did want was a big boxy head so I decided to go in that direction and just put a big box on top of the monkey's head this actually worked out to be a pretty good base I started by adding some big cute eyes which are usually pretty appealing but they just kind of felt met here my brain kept thinking of the runaway TV from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs that was definitely a robot ish thing that was out of control so I tried turning the face into a TV screen and adding eyes and mouth to that what's that old school computer monitor head had a face on it I knew I was heading down the right path I still don't love the body but I didn't think anyone would care and I needed to keep making progress with the character based designed I moved it from Photoshop into a sprite to animate and adding animations made this thing even more adorable for time and because I liked the effect I do very limited animations and then add a lot of extra effect and character in the engine I use a simple squash and stretch function that I found to give me amazing results I bumped it up a little more than usual for this character and it's so cute and squishy I absolutely love it all right the player is finally in looking good now I have to make all the art that's not the character I pulled the tile said I made recently to use as a base these actually came together pretty easily and I don't hate them which is a big plus for me during a game jam so I'm a couple hours into art and I finally have all the items and tile sets done but wait there's more I still need to make the art for the inventory slots articles the death block which became a mini saw blade and is super awesome and the level exit so now it's almost 7 p.m. and I spent most of the day on the art but I have the core of the game together and the art all implemented I then spent the next three hours finding and adding sound Thanks I didn't record this process because there really isn't much to see I purchased several sound packs and audio humble bundles so I have a lot to choose from but it's just me scrolling through folders listening to different sound clips and then importing them and trying them out as someone who's very visually oriented audio is my least favorite part of the game making process but it's super important don't underestimate how much skipping on audio can affect how your game is perceived it used to be the last thing I did when making a game but I bumped it up in my workflow recently - right after art this keeps you from just slapping any old thing in because I'm out of time at the very end alright with all the pieces now assembled it's time to actually make a game as of right now I just have the one test level I should probably do more than that puzzle games are hard to design levels for I don't know why I keep making them for game jams I always end up struggling to make something that's fun but not too challenging as I was laying out levels I began to be worried that things were getting a bit too complex for the amount of time and number of levels I was gonna have so I cut the number of item slots down from 4 to 3 and instead of changing the items and amounts each level I just stuck with the jump pad platform and block and just changed the amounts sadly this meant that I had to cut the speed up in slowdown items they could have made some really cool puzzle elements but I didn't have enough time to make more levels to introduce them to the player properly I was set with 10 levels because the amount of time I had left and adding two more items in that span of time would have been a bit messy in my opinion I didn't want to be introducing new items and mechanics on levels 8 or 9 for instance it's around 12:30 and I have 10 levels that I thought were alright the jam ends at noon tomorrow so I could go to bed now and get a good night's sleep and finished everything up in the morning but I'm not really a morning person and I'm way more productive at night so I decided I was in this for the long haul and I was gonna finish it tonight with the levels made the game is effectively done but it's nice to have a menu win screen credits etc so it's time to make some buttons I set this up very basic with the menu functioning I jumped back into Photoshop to do a quick button design and figure out the logo typically I struggle with game names and logos but it was really late so I just didn't second-guess anything make the way was the first game name I thought of and I just went with it in my mind it was a play on make way because the robot is out of control get it probably not but it made sense to me at 2:30 in the morning after that I just tested and tweaked and tested and tweaked and test and tweet and tested and tweets tried to make everything feel like a complete little package by the time I exported set up the each page and submitted the game it was somehow 5 a.m. and the Sun was coming up oops but the game was done and submitted so even if I slept in and missed the deadline it really wouldn't matter even with going to bed so late I ended up getting up around 10:00 and to my surprise a couple people had already played the game and left comments one let me know that a couple of the later levels could be cheesed pretty easily by the way thanks duckies since I had a little bit of time left and I did have a couple of other bugs as I was too lazy to fix the night before I jumped back in fixed the bugs removed some of the cheese and re-uploaded with about 30 minutes left before the deadline then I went in took a nap as I'm writing this section seven hours later the game is actually getting pretty great reception people really love the robot and seem to be enjoying the mechanics and ideas the major criticisms have been about wanting to be able to pick up and place items without having to erase them and then go grab them again as well as a few other quality-of-life stuff along those same lines each comment about it makes me think yep I should have done that and I 100% agree with you but I think I would have run out of time had I tried so unfortunately it is what it is for now and this is the game the first two levels are built to teach the player the core interactions you can pick up and place an item as well as erase it I tried to keep the puzzles fairly straightforward and quick I always try to make the difficulty pretty low on game jam games to make sure that anyone can enjoy the game for at least 10 minutes or so okay so what are my final thoughts I'm actually really happy with this game as I've said there could be a lot more quality of life features but hey 48 hours isn't much time especially when working solo I've been falling back in love with making pixel art lately and I really like the look and feel I was able to create you the robot is super adorable and squishy how can you not love it I am bummed that I had to cut the speed up and slow down items I'm sure they could have been used to make some really fun puzzles but they weren't worth increasing the complexity overall when it comes to my work I try to keep the phrase kill your darlings front of mind if something isn't working it's really easy to get caught up in the sunk cost fallacy oh I've already spent so long on this blah blah blah usually it just means you're gonna sink even more time into it and it's still not gonna work so I genuinely try that when I find something that just isn't working I try to cut it before it can waste any more of my who knows maybe I'll revisit this in the future and I can make it work then but most likely not so after all this - my opinion on 48-hour game jams change not really I just want to make something that looks and feels good so I end up spending so much time working on it that I can't really do anything else but that said I had the time these last couple of days and I had a lot of fun making this it's also really cool to be part of a jam with 18 point 1000 participants which is just utterly insane if you were in the jam as well congratulations if you finished my condolences if you didn't and I hope that you got to make something fun and have a good story to tell I'd like to thank my patrons especially David Scott and okay and Scott Hanson you are all awesome people and I truly appreciate the support if you'd like to play make the way or any of my other games you can go to vim large CO or click the link in the description to get in contact with me you can stop by my Twitter streams where I'm always doing something related to game dev or pixel art message me on Twitter or join the discord with a lot of other really cool people if you've enjoyed this video please consider liking and subscribing and I will talk with you next time have a good one later

Channel: Vimlark

Views: 258,375

Keywords: game, game dev, indie, indie dev, Construct, construct 3, photoshop, aseprite, pixel art, pixel, video game, madewithconstruct, devlog, Indie Devlog, Indie game devlog, dev log, indiecade2019, indiecade, nick, dufault, nick dufault, Ultimate Game Jam, Game Jam, Jam, GMTK, Game Maker's Tool Kit, GMTK 2020

Id: MoDdUfj6ASg

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 13 2020