Post Mortem

We made a platformer called “Cataclysmic” for GMTK 2020. The time frame for the jam was 48 hours and the theme was “Out of Control”. 

We were really excited for this opportunity to create and work together as a team again. Moony - the big boss and the programmer/game designer. Liz - the artist and the other big boss of course. Chumpo - the bird programmer. Chris - the sound designer. 

The concept was a bit difficult to work with. What does “out of control” mean? Initially we thought it would mean that the player loses his controls. But not having controls is frustrating and not fun. But the theme is “out of control” not “not in control”. The difference is that the player is still in control, just not well.

We had a lot of ideas for the game but didn’t feel too excited about any. But we knew we needed to do something with cats, because Chris and Liz really wanted cats. While brainstorming Liz just kept saying “cats”... Anyways Moony thought about a game about shooting where you can’t stop shooting for a while once you start. In a sidescroller it could kick you back and make platforming feel out of control. To balance the shooting out we added wind and made it a platformer…. with cats! The shooting and wind was enough to make it feel out of control without making it too crazy. Then everyone was set to work. 

Liz went ham on the art and drew stuff. Moony was thinking more about the game and fun mechanics, programming it to make sure everything works. Chris was running around trying to get sound samples from his cat. And sometimes, life is out of our control, so Chumpo had to take the first day off.

The Good

The team culture was awesome. Everyone was incredibly excited to work on the game and had full motivation to see it through. Liz was just churning out art after art after art and Moony was feeling the heat of keeping up with her.

Everyone ended up working really long hours. Moony was worried that everyone would feel pressured to work without breaks and tried to make everyone relax and have fun with the jam. But we said “Screw that, let’s make the game”. That work ethic is really admirable. We did our best to make the visuals as delightful as we could, like adding a tiny kitty on the buttons and hiding a giant bird in one of the levels (you can thank Chumpo for that).

Although there were many points in the jam where we were exhausted, our conversations were still filled with laughter, positivity and energy. Random bugs like the dog falling off the earth and then flying into space were hilarious instead of frustrating.

So overall, we as a team are on fire and no one can stop us!

The Bad

Time Management was the biggest issue. We had a plan which we followed well. But the plan wasn’t good from the start. 

Level design was left for the last six hours. Next time we will build levels once the main mechanic is done. The mechanic should be explored more to see how it feels and what it does. That way the team can test the game earlier and Moony could have seen how others play the game. Level design would have been better, because Moony would have had more time for it. After all of that, if we would have more time we would have been better equipped to think of new mechanics to add to the gameplay. In hindsight, while the dogs were super adorable, it didn’t add a lot to the game mechanically and they took a lot of time to implement. We could have just added something as simple as a balloon that damages you when you touch them. You would have been able to shoot them, but shooting them will make you kick back and make you feel out of control.

In the end, we didn’t leave enough time to test whether everything works and to build the game. Moony made the levels too challenging because he thought it was too easy, so he didn’t leave a lot of margin for error. What he didn’t realise was not everyone was as good as he was. We also ran into issues with Unity and almost didn’t put the game up in time (thanks Mark for understanding).

Dogs were not the best idea but it was still a good learning experience. The dogs never died, they played dead and came back up, so beating them would not remove them and made shooting all the dogs difficult. That mechanic meant that we had to place less dogs, and hence less action for the player.

We didn’t take the time to think about the controls. Not only ‘W’ but also the spacebar should have been reserved for jumping, instead we used the spacebar for shooting. We should have used alternative buttons for shooting. Not just one but many, so the player can pick which button they prefer.

Communication is key, but we didn’t do enough of it. It was really hard to see what each other had done when we were all doing our own thing. In the future, we plan to have regular catch-up calls to see what everyone’s up to and make sure we are all on the same page.

The Learning

In this jam a lot was done independently. Liz drew a dog because Moony told her “we need an enemy”. But he didn’t know what that enemy was or what it did yet. Because of that she drew what she felt would be a great enemy. A dog licking you to death. Insanely cute, but it didn’t work well with the mechanic of wind, shooting and platforming. Chris wasn’t told too much what sounds we need. Moony let him know when he realized it, which was often really late. He also learnt to decide on what the game will be from the start and let everyone know. The decision made early might be a bad one, but it's better than making one too late. Especially when you’re under a tight deadline of 48 hours.

The Jam was a lot of fun and as always we learned a lot about time management and communication. We explored new mechanics and learned what works and doesn’t.