The jam (or jame) has started and the theme has been released. I had to laugh; it’s magic & bottle. They’re really into their potions at the moment apparently. 

As it’s fairly late in the night I decided I wanted to create a rough concept tonight and sleep on it, ready to start proper game creation tomorrow. I followed the same process as last time and so far I’m finding it works wonderfully. I created a mind map beginning with the two words, magic and bottle, and branched out from them with whatever came to mind. After about ten minutes of brainstorming I had three ideas I think sound pretty fun. 

• Players will be tasked with remembering lots of patterns as the complexity and speed they’re required increases. This intends to create a overwhelming, frantic challenge. Thematically, this will be depicted as a potion maker attempting to fulfil orders (perhaps not as qualified as they claimed to be). 
• Players will need to strategically choose who to help as they dodge through the crossfire of a tense, epic battle to reach them. Thematically, this will be shown as a healer helping their teammates during a fantasy boss fight, likely against a dragon of some sort.  
• Players will be tasked with protecting a fragile potion of powerful magic. They’ll need to carefully deliver it to it’s destination whilst avoiding the many unobservant and reckless students practicing magic. I feel like this has potential for a humorous and tense game of egg and spoon with far greater stakes. 

I’m going to decide in the morning which one I like most after some rest but I feel all carry potential. I’m leaning away from the first simply because I feel it’s too similar to the game I just made for Metroidvania Month Jam but that could be a good thing given the short time limit. 

I said in my last post that budgeting my time is going to be vital to my success, so I’m going to make a list of all the things I want to have done by the end and mark how long I think each task will take. I’m then going to fill my time limit budget (of realistically 18 hours) with the tasks I see as most important and set aside the others as a list of potential features. I’m hoping this will allow me to more fully realize the project. 

I’m also determined to make music for this one! I didn’t get to do any sound last time and that’s one of the things I enjoy most. It’s definitely going in my time budget. 

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The next morning, after discussing with some friends and considering what I could realistically get done in essentially two days, I chose my ‘Protect the potion’ idea. It ticks all the boxes - simple, unique, easy to pick up but hard to master. 

I expanded upon the idea by filling a sheet up with all my thoughts on how I could implement the player experience. I sketched some rough level designs ideas and at first was really entranced by the idea of precarity. I initially had the idea to make the potion held on a platter and so moving too quickly would make the potion fall over smash. I still think this is a good idea, but after a few hours coding it in Unity I couldn’t get it feeling fun so scrapped it for a much simpler approach; the player holds the potion out in front of them and can choose which direction they hold it. This is either above or to either side of their character. They need to avoid letting the potion touch any of the walls or other obstacles and can switch the sides to avoid said obstacles. 

Another change I made to my concept was time. I decided that, thematically, you’re a student at wizard school who’s been asked by the strict potion maker to deliver a potion to them across campus - and that it better get there on time! To portray this mechanically, the player will have a set time to complete all the levels successfully and a constant push to move fast. I feel like this will increase the intensity and foster a tense, frantic experience. 

After getting my thoughts onto the page, I cut up some index cards and wrote down each of the main tasks and assigned a number of hours to each. I then blue tacked these to the wall beside my monitor and placed them in order of importance. When I finished the task, I would cross out my predicted time and write how long it really took. I allocated my time like this: Player - 3 hours Enemies - 3 hours Level Design - 8 hours Music & SFX - 3 hours Sprites & art - 3 hours Menus & Screens - 1 hour Story - 2 hours I started working on the game in Unity but after 3 hours of playing around with the physics and attempting to create the experience I was after, I decided everything would be much easier and faster in Game Maker. Don’t get me wrong, I love Unity, I just don’t think it was going to be the quickest way to get this game built. Obviously would’ve been nice to have known that earlier but oh well.  I switched to Game Maker and rebuilt my character in an hour. Partially proving my decision correct.  I then moved to level design and enemies. I came to the conclusion that as long as I start and get something on the screen, then the ideas will flow naturally from there as I follow the fun. I’d usually start by thinking of one trick I want the player to do and then let the level grow on it’s own as I consider both how I can teach them that trick in earlier levels and how I can signpost that that’s what I’m asking them to do. I also kept pushing myself to make just one more level with only a handful of mechanics. I feel like this made me far more creative with the things I tried and made the levels feel cohesive and focused. 

The enemies were very simple and I overbudgeted my time dramatically for those guys. They took me 30m. There’s walkers that do exactly what the name suggests and shooters that throw fireballs down the hallways. I might come back to this and add more. 

After about 6 hours of work on level design I came away with 20 something levels that I’m happy with. And this is before I’ve even added all the mechanics in to the game! I thought about adding moving platforms (still might) and bouncy springs. I also considered adding another enemy type that will actively harass the player, though I’m not sure what yet.