Ludum Dare 54 Game Jam: Day 2

Ludum Dare Day 2

Day 2 is well over now. Less than 12 hours to go, and I'll be sleeping a good portion of that.

I focused on art mainly today, like I hope. It has taken up almost all the time today, and I haven't done much else.

I'm worried about what I will have to cut. Or more like, what I will actually have time to add still! I'm considering entering the Jam instead of the Compo just for the additional time allowed.

Below is another export of my current state, as-is. I believe everything is pretty much functional as I want it.

Art is missing to show the empty mugs and dirty bars left by the customers.

Also, note the level right only sends five customers. It isn't supposed to go on forever, but nothing is implemented to do after those customers (like send you to the next level). An introduction/tutorial/explanation has not been added yet, either.

Project

I'm not sure of one big decision point: I made the tiles the workers are on smaller, so it has a more cramped feeling. This is to match the theme of limited space. But that means the area for the user to click on and interact gets smaller. It is my own game, and I have already noticed myself clicking outside the tiles on accident and getting frustrated, sometimes thinking, “Why isn't it doing anything??”

So, I'm unsure if I should try making the tiles bigger again or adding other controls. There could be a grid on the side that you could click on as well. I would have the clickable tiles glow to attract the user, but I wondered if that might look weird. Having a UI on the side might work better for that glowing effect.

I would find it amazing if I could get another level completed tomorrow morning before the deadline. But I think it might actually be more important to focus on the introduction and explanation of the game. If you opened it up without reading or being told anything first, you wouldn't know what to do, what each worker's job was, or what to expect.

I made the music in Garage Band on my phone just a bit ago. It might be the only Audio I end up making for this. I'm unsure what kind of sound effects I could make and if they would be annoying, ha. I'm unsure if I should check to be exempt from music, as I pieced together some loops in Garage Band. Though maybe I created the music as there are so many loops available that there could be billions of combinations, but it didn't take any musical skill to put together.

And looks like I'll have to nix the part about letting the user setup their own bar! As in, at the beginning of the level choose where to put the taps, cash register, sink, etc. That would be a lot of work with no real benefit, since there is only an introductory level, ha!

Summary

I'm happy with what I have, but there is so much I'd like to do still. I'll just have to see what time I actually get up and how much energy I have tomorrow.