It's been quite some time since I've actually participated on any game jam, hell… even released something outside of work (although - the border between work, hobby and fun - really blends in these past years). One of the things I realized in the past years is, that participating in anything like Ludum Dare becomes damn hard when you have a family. Luckily, the EXTRA category was added to those of us, who are not able to get multiple days off from family, work, business, and basically their normal life.

Trebuchet Post

Let me introduce you Trebuchet Post - a game I made for Ludum Dare game jam, with theme of delivery. Links for download are available on Ludum Dare page here - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/trebuchet-post​ - there is only Windows version available at this point, doesn't matter whether you use my own server as source or Itch.io.

What went right?

As usual - let's start with what I was happy with.

After 2 years literally outside of Blender, Substance stack or anything art-related, I still could remember most of the things I've learned and tried. While I do know that by investing more time, the geometries, textures, etc. could have been significantly better - I believe the trade off in result is not that bad this time. It didn't take me as long as I expected to model, create generation graphs in Substance, bake textures, etc. To my surprise, I had quite a lot of fun with the tools.

Gameplay-wise - implementing the base mechanics (based on actual trebuchet physics) was easier than I expected. I literally kept the original controls which are technically more challenging than original idea of pre-setting angle at which projectile is released. Controls are sort of addictive - and watching the things flying so early in development (as this was literally the first thing I did) was very inspiring. Using AI synthesis for voice proved to be a very good tool - I originally planned on voicing it myself, but due to AI somewhat seeing big resurgence these days, I gave it a try.

Finishing the project. If one thing went right the most, it was finishing it. Any released jam game means that it went right.

What went wrong?

Due to this being a jam game, there is always one thing going wrong - cutting corners. During the brainstorming idea, I've added physics objects that would be collapsing when hit with the package - the idea was neat, but it's simply not possible in the time-frame to do proper large levels with collapsible structures. I luckily gave up on that idea early and it never resurged back. At the end - there were many other features, levels and additional geometry/gameplay cut out. It's a double-edged sword - trying hard to include more things would mean, this would never get released. And I sure as hell wanted to FINISH it.

Unity - that tool is very strong, I don't mind using it. I've used it in multiple projects, some digging quite deep … but, it provides a lot less freedom than using my own engine. It feels somewhat limited in terms of rendering - but that might be just my feeling. Who knows, maybe it's also time to try other tools like Godot or Unreal Engine at some jam.

Conclusion

Overall, I had fun doing this. It is something different than what I usually do - and changing your usual work to something else brings new perspectives.

The real question after post mortem is always, what's next? I'll still see whether next Ludum Dare is a thing, while I'd like to team up with someone, it's not possible for these short term jams due to family. As for other projects, there is one coming with mile steps forward… but that…

…is a story for another day!