my (much more code-friendly) friend jacob and i recently took part in ludum dare 55, and ended up making a demo that has gotten a lot of positive feedback, and i’m really proud of it. the elevator pitch was a downhill runner that lands sort of in between bunny hill and downwell (i’m sure many of you have played downwell, but if you haven’t played bunny hill…). long story short, we did not have time to execute our full vision (such is the way of the game jam), but the demo features:
- a hill!
- a kid on a bike!
- a demon!
- rocks!
- trees!
- light-medium bitcrushed music and sound effects!
- psx-inspired visuals!
- ragdoll physics!
- seeded level generation!
all with surprisingly few bugs!
i learned a lot in this process, and though i know some people say not to hold onto your jam games, i am really excited by the groundwork that we have put down and i want to see this through to the end. the current game is fun to replay for a little while, but it’s lacking a long-term hook. here are some
of the features i want to add (long-term):
- reduced obstacles overall
- more uneven/natural-ish terrain (in an intentional/design-ish way)
- jumps
- enemies
- a projectile weapon system
- a mechanic where shooting slows you down (in the style of downwell), but killing enemies speeds you up (the way that flags etc speed you up in bunny hill, where if you do right you can abuse the physics and go insaneo speed)
- curated levels
- time trial system w/ online leaderboards (the final hook / necessitates the curated levels)
i’m really proud of the design and technical side of this game, and i can’t wait to build it up all the way. i think if these ideas are implemented well, it could be a really great little game. i hope none of this sounds too conceited; i am just really excited by the response we’ve gotten from the jammers! if you are interested or didn’t feel like reading all of this…
you can try our game here!
- apologies if there was a specific thread i should have posted this under. i looked but i couldn’t find anything specifically pertaining to games made by insert crediters! maybe this could be the start of that thread? make games! it’s never too late and it’s awesome!