Monday, April 28, 2014

Ludum Dare 29 #1 - Agents & Assassins


This last weekend I competed in Ludum Dare, which is a 48 hour international game jam. This time though, I did it with the folks of Jamalaide, Adelaide's own game jam group. There wasn't a very big turn out but it was a pretty fun experience nonetheless, if not also stressful and busy.

The jam theme was "Beneath the surface", which wasn't the most interesting theme but led to some interesting interpretations. I went hard literal and based it on the quote from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the built the game around trying to route out dissenters hiding beneath the surface of Rome's neighborhoods. I also had a side challenge of hiding the "Tree of Life" in there somewhere, which I managed to secret in there.

Getting something made in 48 hours was tough but mechanic-wise I got the basic stuff in there. I spent way too long coding things in unnecessary ways, like dynamically placing the city layout and how the enemies are handled... Things that would be great if this was something I was actively developing but not great when I could've used that time for polish/better graphics/better bells and whistles. More on that in the upcoming postmortem.

If you'd liked to have a go, the game's Ludum Dare page is here, or you can play it at my website here.

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