Bitpatio's Gamedev.tv jam 2022 devlog! Phase NaN: Failure to launch

Unreal Courses Show
#1

Howdy!

As you may already know, the gamedev.tv jam 2022 has just started and I thought I might start a devlog here to keep myself motivated and get some feedback along the way.

Why is this post in Unreal courses? Well… I’m going Unreal Engine 5 this year. :slight_smile:

But let’s get to the point: I have kind of an analysis paralysis situation right now and can’t decide on an idea to develop a game from.

That’s why I inserted a poll in this post. Feel free to vote and comment. Much appreciated!

A brief description of the concepts I have in mind (working titles):

Dungeon Janitor
As the appointed dungeon janitor, your mission is to clean up the mess those pesky RPG heroes always leave behind, reviving/replacing the dead monsters and equipping them to destroy the heroes if they ever try again. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, right? And you better be good at it, or the Demon Lord’s wrath shall fall upon you.

Ferryman of the Styx
As the ferryman of the Styx, your job is to bring the souls of the deceased from the side of the living to the side of the dead, where they belong. Sounds easy? It’s not. Not all souls are happy to go on this journey and the river seems to have a life of its own.

Eurydice
Based in the myth of the same name, Orpheus mourns the death of his beloved Eurydice and goes to the Hades to take her back with him. Will he be able to come back in one piece without looking back?

  • Dungeon Janitor
  • Ferryman of the Styx
  • Eurydice

0 voters

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#2

Good luck! :slight_smile:

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#3

Thank you! Same to you.

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#4

Voting Dungeon Janitor. I loved Towns, which has a similar take where you manage the shops above a dungeon.

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#5

Thanks! I actually was thinking of something like this game, but in a medieval fantasy setting: Viscera Cleanup Detail on Steam

Maybe not so gruesome as I think we have kids around in the jam. :sweat_smile:

EDIT: Welcome to the forum btw!

#6

Your ideas are so great! I’m really struggling with a concept here. Good luck and have fun!

Cheers!
Tele

1 Like
#7

Thanks! I guess I’ll go with The ferryman although UE5 is giving me a hard time. I checked the water plugin and made some progress in that direction but the packaged game crashed on startup and couldn’t find the cause, so I started a new blueprint project and… it worked!

I see it’s feasible now, so I’ll move to the concept art phase.

Here’s the “game” so far:

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#8

Couldn’t help playing a bit with the lighting and mood.

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#9

Hmmm… I think I’ve written a lot and I’ll have to cut a bunch of features from the final product for the jam. In case you like walls of text:

Overall goal/lore

Your goal as the ferryman in this game is to take the soul of a deceased girl from one side of the river Styx (working name) to the other and ensure her safety along the way. The river seems to have a life of its own and changes every time a new soul enters it, trying to tempt and trap the newcomer into it using either its wits or just brute force. If the river succeeds, the traveler becomes a lost soul and gets stuck into the river: another puppet that the river can add to its army and manipulate at will.

Travel conditions

  1. The ferryman will ensure the customer’s safety for the length of the journey.
  2. The customer will obey the ferryman instructions to the letter and never, under any circumstances, leave the boat until reaching the destination.
  3. The customer will pay in full and in advance . No refunds. The payment is a rock often found within the customer’s mouth.

Ferryman’s abilities

He can row forward and backwards, and steer the boat left and right.

Also hop out of the boat, walk on the water (I think a swimming system would be impractical), jump and attack enemies with his oar. He can’t stray too far from the boat though, as one of his feet is chained to it (in addition to exposing the customer to enemy attacks, breaching his end of the bargain).

I’ve omitted the level descriptions to avoid spoilers. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#10

Got hopping in and out of the boat working:

I didn’t think about it, but controlling the boat without being on it might actually be better. To save on animations, of course.

Kind of a downtime day. At least I got some assets from https://polyhaven.com that may come in handy.

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#11

Hey, it’s been a while. As I’ve just posted on twitter, I’ve decided not to submit mi “game” to the game jam:

Simply put, I don’t think the project at this stage is worth anyone’s time and it’s better to reflect on what went wrong and learn from my mistakes rather than releasing for the sake of it.

Thank you for following this thread and stay tuned for a post-mortem.

1 Like
#12

What you got there is cool though! And if the project is fun… nobody can force you to stop working on it, right?

IMO there is a big value in doing project till the finish, even missing the deadline. Like for example my first “published” game is a pong (in unreal! :smiley: ) … and I thought I will do it in a weekend or a week at most… it took a month! Great learning experience though!

I do! if you create a new thread please @ me too so I don’t miss it :slight_smile: (I’m subscribed to this one, so if you put it here I’ll not miss it :smiley: )

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#13

LOL - I know what you mean. I wrote pong from scratch several years ago using DirectX/OpenGL and it took me 3 months to finish! Like you said - great learning experience.

@bitpatio Don’t be down on yourself - you had some interesting ideas (I personally liked the ‘Dungeon Janitor’ concept :grinning: ). The jam was only 10 days and a common mistake people make (especially beginners) is not limiting their scope enough from the start. Limiting scope in itself is actually harder than most people realize.

I’m in agreement with bOBaN and encourage you to continue development on your project. Perhaps jot down a little ‘ToDo’ list and identify which features are critical to gameplay, and which are ‘stretch’ goals (nice to have, but not essential for a complete deliverable). And keep in mind that you can always post progress updates here on the forums for visibility and feedback.

3 Likes
#14

Oh no! That will happen. Your game looks awesome where it is at, and I still really appreciate the dev log and updates! Your logs were still really inspiring, and I also greatly appreciate all of the help and advice you offered on my project! Don’t let yourself get too down though, there will be more jams :slight_smile:

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#15

Hey guys! Thank you for your support!

@bOBaN Pong on UE? You like extreme sports, right? No need to switch bat-channel or anything, the post-mortem will be posted here.
If I decide to continue the project I will probably start a new thread, though.

@SteveMerritt Yeah, the scope was maybe a bit too much, specially in terms of assets and trying something I actually didn’t investigate properly before the Jam (UE Water plugin), but I think it’s more of spending too much thinking without proper planning.
About Dungeon Janitor… well, a quick search on itch.io revealed at least 4 games with that exact name and premise, probably more if you look for variants as Cleanup Dungeon or such. So I discarded the idea on the basis of originality, but would probably have had an easier time since most if not all the required functionality was discussed in the courses.
I already had feature lists, maybe I should have been more specific.
I’ll consider continuing the project but for now I think it’s for the better to “park” it away and start something new and maybe not as ambitious.

@telesphorosgames Well yeah, that does happen. Thank you for the nice words and tuning in. Glad to have been of any help.

Alright, I’ll play some jam games including yours, if you don’t mind. Will get them on video, don’t know if in stream form, though.

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