Postmortem / Thoughts

Welcome everyone, to a post mortem for Master of the Elements. I made this game for the weekly game jam.

I've been working on 'Saikyou' for one and a half year so far and it's been a while since I took a break or did a game jam. With long and big Projects like this I like to step back for a bit. Otherwise I find myself standing too close to the elephant. I loose the bigger picture for I am too caught up in all the details. So this jam was a break from working hard and a step back from Saikyou.

The Elevator Pitch

The Theme was "Control the Environment". The first thought I had was a puzzle game or a clone of "loco roco". But I felt it would be more interesting to have a combat system in which you fight by controlling the environment. So you shoot enemies but you kill them by shooting the environment.

Keeping it Simple

Since I needed a break I had had to keep it simple. I gave myself a scope of three days while having six days for it. The plan was simple. You have four elements (water, earth, wind and fire) which you shoot at things to change their state. This way you control the environment and that kills enemies. So a tree can become a burning tree if shot with fire. If a tree is shot with wind or earth ... well that is where I ran out of ideas.
Anything I could think of would take too long. I thought of giving the player points if they shoot a tree with earth, which just makes the tree disappear. But that is confusing AND I didn't have the time to balance that mechanic. Each new mechanic needs to be created, tested and balanced! Else the game will just have one tactic that is the best way to play the game. But the game should be about choices!

Meaningful Choices

You always have two elements. You start with earth and water. Earth is used to shoot. Once it is out of ammo you have fire as your main element. You can switch your main element, in this example fire, with your side element, water, whenever and how often you want. This way you have a choice while not having a choice. You can always switch your main element to keep it for later but you also need to shoot a lot to cycle through the elements.

A * B = Way to freaking much ... keep it simple!

Initially I wanted every object to interact with every element. Then I realized that is way to much work AND often left me puzzled about the interaction. Tree with earth? Wind with tree? Idk!

I realized it makes way more sense to just give each element multiple uses. That way the interesting choice lies in what do I do with this element. Else the question would be "what the hell does this element do". Which is a cool thing for exploration! But that's not what this game was about. It is about chasing a highscore while having fun.

• Wind can push back enemies heavily
  If shot on burning trees or ships, the wind splits into three fire projectiles. Which is super powerful in shooting enemies on the island OR having super high range against ships on the ocean.
• Fire can incinerate things like ships or trees. A burning tree deals tons of damage to nearby enemies. 
• Earth creates saplings which grow into trees. It can also be used to push enemies or ships away.
• Water deals decent damage against enemies, makes saplings grow into trees, takes out fires and creates lakes. 

After thoughts

What could I have done different to make the game better? 

I think the elements overall are quite boring. They do interact with the environment but you control the environment to much. In fact you are the only factor in it! So instead the fire on trees should be more uncontrollable! Meaning once something is burning, that fire can spawn another fire on the ground. So the fire is alive and moving! You are no longer safe on the island if to many things burn, since that will spread the fire a lot! Water is now super useful as it can battle the fire and is the only thing standing in it's way to kill you. 

But you need the fire to kill enemies on the island since projectiles no longer deal damage to enemies! They only push them back and stun them. Shooting earth on a fire takes out the fire but stepping on that ground will still deal damage to you for a while since it's still hot. Shooting wind on fire makes it spread like crazy BUT in the direction you shoot. So you can control the fire. Trees no longer last forever, they die over time unless you shoot earth on them, which resets them to be young again. Each alive tree now gives a point every now and then. Meaning you want to keep them alive BUT you need them to kill enemies. Since all this makes the game way faster, the fire rate is doubled and with that the ammunition you have as well. 

Shooting earth on a ship gives it "hull" damage and slows it down. Enough hull damage and the ship sinks. Ships now have a fire level. Shooting fire on one raises the fire level. Ships take hull damage every second when they burn. The stronger the fire, the higher the damage. Wind moves ships back giving you time, also it makes the fire go stronger like crazy. Shooting water on a ship makes it flood with water meaning it sinks earlier. Ships now also don't just burn forever. The more crewmembers it has, the faster it takes out the fire! Meaning the different ships have different ways to beat them. 

• Fast small ships with only one crewmember can easily be beaten with fire since the one member can't take it out. Since the health is low shooting the ship with earth beats it easily as well.
• Medium sized ships have multiple crewmember who can take out the fire in time. Since the ship is not that big, earth is effective as it deals a lot of damage.
• Big ships on the other hand are to tanky for earth. You need to shoot them with fire and wind. Or you sink them by shooting earth on them and then sinking them with water.

That's it

I really enjoyed this jam. It was a fun little game to make and a good timing to take a week of 'Saikyou' BUT I am super hyped to get back into Saikyou and see it come to live. I hope you guys enjoyed me putting my thoughts about this out. If you read this far leave a comment about your thoughts. What would you change to make this game better?

Have a great day everyone!
Moon