Major Jam 7 Winner! + Devlog

I'm a little late to post this, but in case you haven't heard...

Our game won first place in Major Game Jam 7! 

Celebrations aside, I'm super happy for all of the positive reactions to this silly little game, and it seems that people really did enjoy being chased around by our favorite little red monster. 

As you may know, me and my team created the whole game in less than a week (about 6 days to be exact). 

What you may not know is that this project was my first time...

• Participating in a large game jam
• Making a horror game (not including RISERTRAP - but go check that out too :P)
• Making smart enemy AI
• Making directional audio
• Making a seeded chunk-generation dungeon environment

And other small things that I've had to solve during development. It's a miracle the game was even finished, to be honest!

The first few days were spent on the main mechanics - a little player character, picking up and dropping items, and carrying coal to a furnace.

Being bold, I decided to make a randomly generating environment - the earliest prototype of that was done by day 2. But it wasn't really that interesting - just the same rooms repeated in a grid over and over. Thanks to Federico Calchera, the room generation was greatly improved to use a "Drunk walker" algorithm that created actual paths randomly, and the map generator was refined over time to have tons of different chunk varieties. We set up chunks with preset decorations and places for items/breakers to spawn, and I implemented seeded randomness for endless mode over the next few days.

You might have noticed the giant conveyor belt which becomes a huge part of gameplay. Truthfully, this was made because bringing coal to the furnace became quite a cumbersome task, so the conveyor just requires you to go to the center of the map instead. I found it really charming - conveyors are just cool... and it still had the downside of taking a while to fully deliver your coal.

Of course, there's the matter of Cobb. I knew I wanted some kind of monster which would chase the player (and I had already started to conceive of how it would be affected by rules) but I didn't know what it should look like, so I made a quick sprite and...

Oh.

Not exactly the most threatening looking creature, and I also had no idea what kind of animations it could have... so I decided to try large arms that could grab the player (somewhat inspired by the Janitor from Little Nightmares).

Cobb can...

• Move - aesthetic rule which does nothing.
• See - will notice the player if their light level is high, with visibility increasing the minimum distance to be noticed.
• Hear - will be notified of the position of sounds. Footsteps are quiet and can only be heard from a close distance, but something loud like a breaker can be heard from across the map.
• Smell - has the ability to sniff occasionally, which always gives a general direction of the player. This sense is quite weak, but at close distances the interval between sniffs decrease - and at close enough range, Cobb will rampage towards the scent.
• Reach - just makes Cobb's arms longer. This gives him slightly more speed and range when attempting to grab the player.
• Duplicate - probably the most terrifying rule to see for the first time. It simply spawns another Cobb, and slightly nerfs each Cobb's speed. This rule can end up stacking past level 5.

You can...

• Freeze - The player will slow and eventually die if in low light levels for too long. A nice complimentary rule to Cobb can see.
• Starve - The player will slowly starve, but carrots now spawn across the map. Adds some urgency.

Unused rules... 

I wanted to implement these, but didn't have enough time or energy!

• Cobb can mutate - Gives Cobb four arms, for increased dexterity.
• Cobb can grab - Allows Cobb to pick up items. Perhaps he could pick up candles, if he can also see. Maybe he can pick up rocks and throw them at you... or maybe he can even steal coal on a conveyor belt.
• Cobb can hide - Cobb could maybe camouflage with the background and wait for the right moment to strike.
• Cobb can dash - This one was quite silly. I actually did implement this feature, with the idea being that Cobb could sort of "leap" towards the player while chasing - but it felt weird and unbalanced, so I removed it.
• Floor can crumble - The first rule idea not affecting the player or Cobb, but the environment itself can have loose tiles that break away and can cause you to fall.

One thing I found really endearing about the game is level 1.

 I absolutely love how Cobb starts with no senses or abilities, and you can just kind of observe him walking around. Most horror games don't let you see the monster at all, but this game presents the unknown immediately. You know he's dangerous if you get too close, but he just seems so harmless... and you get the feeling that it's not going to last.