PRELUDE
On the weekend of July 17th, our team reunited to participate in our first game jam.
We chose the jam hosted by Game Maker’s Tool Kit. First, because we’ve been following his YouTube channel for a while, and secondly, because it’s a MASSIVE one.
It was scheduled to last from 7PM (CEST) on Friday until 9PM (CEST) on Sunday. The theme would only be unveiled at the beginning. 50 hours to create a finished game and post it online. The online community would have a week to judge all games. They would be ranked based upon creativity, presentation and user enjoyment.
We wanted to participate to challenge ourselves by testing our new skills, and to see what we could do in such a short timespan but also to connect our team around a quick and tangible goal.
As it was our first game marathon, we were not sure how to handle it. We spent Friday afternoon preparing. We set up our tools, our files and our work method, but we also prepared abundant snack provisions!
IDEA
At 7PM, we were ready and gathered around plates of pasta to discover the theme together.
There were a few moments of silence, before we launched a flood of ideas. Brainstorms are our thing. Effective ones… not so much.
Our thoughts kept circling around puzzle games. However, we wanted to bring an unexpected twist to the theme, so that our game would stand out from the crowd. We also wanted it to be really fun and juicy while still remaining accessible for any skill level.
We asked ourselves: what if the die were a character that you couldn’t control? After two hours of uninterrupted talking, we had all agreed upon our core concept. What if you had to roll the die but it didn’t want to be rolled? What if you could hurt a really cute character, by throwing objects at it to make it fall over?
United by our sadism and bad sense of humour, we directly decided what our title would be: “TRolling the Dice”.
Happy with our findings, we started working on our idea.
DEVELOPMENT
Morgane began designing the content, Olivier animated our character, Gautier started developing the IA of the die and Pierre implemented the architecture and the throwables’ behaviour.
Due to our poor organization, we all had extra activities planned throughout the weekend. This gave us an even shorter time span to work with. In addition, we had quite a challenge to tackle: Our concept was simple and our game quite short so we had to hit hard with all aspects to make a strong impression.
The visuals had to be bright and playful, to contrast with the sadism of hurting an innocent die. We were inspired by stick figures and childhood series. We wanted to implement a childish vibe, with funny things to throw at our character. That’s why every object, even the die, is inspired by what you could find in a schoolbag. But that wasn’t enough. We implemented different physical effects to entertain the player. The paper plane flies over and doesn’t touch anything, the chewing gum sticks to the die, the candy or eraser hits the die and so does the boot but as it’s heavier, it hits it even harder.
We also wanted to bring nuance and balance to this short, stress-relieving game. The die had to feel kind of alive.
To achieve that, we developed an emotion gauge that whould affect the general behavior of the die.
This emotion gauge is actually a disguised damage bar. According to the damage sustained, the die would pass from one “emotion level” to another. It would evolve from a calm state to one of annoyance or even total panic. If left alone for a few moments, it would return to a state of calm.
This damage system would be split into four levels:
- Level 1 : Indifference. The die moves happily about on the table, until it gets hit by a first object. This brings it to Level 2.
- Level 2 : Fear. The die begins to run about, its center of gravity becomes higher. The die falls down easily. Anxiety registers on its face. After a few hits, it reaches Level 3.
- Level 3: Annoyance. The die understands what is happening and is annoyed. Instead of running away, it throws objects back, when possible (this is random, we’ll admit). Its center of gravity is much lower, which allows it to better resist the objects being thrown at it. When it realizes that its efforts are in vain, it reaches Level 4.
- Level 4: Total panic. The die has no idea what to do to avoid being bowled over. It starts sprinting randomly in all directions. Its center of gravity goes back up and it is again easier to make it fall down. When this happens, it brings on…
- …the final explosion. The player wins!
Our tricks to reach these behaviors :
- The character’s animations and the drawings of its facial expressions
- The character’s AI: This modifies its speed and its changes of directions, as well as its behavior towards the objects thrown at it.
- The character’s physics: Its center of gravity evolves, which makes it more or less easy to topple. Its physics box is made up of a hemisphere topped by a cube.
To this strong base, we added entertaining music, funny sounds, a shaking camera and a glorious finish.
49 hours and 30 minutes later, we had a “good enough” game that we posted on the website. We were tired, but satisfied. Could we have perfected things? Yes. But are we happy with the result? Yes, definitely. We had fun while making it and playing it, and that was all that mattered to us.
RESULTS
More than 22k participants , 6,112 entries, a week and 131k ratings later, here were the results.
Mark was going to test out the first 100 games and feature the 20 best in a video. We are not going to lie, we really wanted to be in that top 100. Maybe it was foolish to even dream of making the top 20.
In the end, we could have guessed the answer, it’s always 42. Indeed, we weren’t that foolish as we finished in the 42nd spot of the general ranking. And, yes, achievement unlocked! Though we weren’t chosen in the top 20, we did appear (less than 6 seconds) in the video.
If we made you want to play our game, please find it here. We hope you will have as much fun playing it as we had creating it !
https://bottom-up-games.itch.io/troll-the-dice
