Hello!

I just joined this jam. I will continue to work on the game I made for the ludum dare 49: Quantum splitter.

I started game devellopment as a hobby 13 year ago and Unity 5 years ago. I started a few "big" projects but didn't managed to finish them for various reasons. So I decided to try to make the smallest possible commercial games then ramp up progressively to bigger games.

The game I made for LD is a good candidate as it is simple enough to be finished in a few weeks and is touchscreen compatible.

So, there is what I did so far :

10/02

The theme of the ludum dare was "Unstable". I brainstormed and come up with the idea of a puzzle game inspired by the chain reaction agility/luck games from the Flash era.

I tried different art styles, mostly in the minimalism genre, until I found one that was pleasant enough.

Then I spent most of the day implementing the different mecanics. Nothing tricky here as the game is very simple.

I also polished the graphics with particle systems and animations. And I made some editor scripts to speed up the level creation.

10/03

I started the day by generating musics with Strofe (AI tool), as you have to make every asset in a LD compo. Strofe is surprisingly good at generating music for action games, but had some trouble with "chill" musics that would fit a puzzle game. I eventually ended with a half decent music. I definitively will change it later, but for the ludum dare version it will have to do it.

Then I recorded and edited some mouth sounds to make sounds effects for the collisions. And finished the UI.

I spend most of the afternoon making levels. I tried to make the game easy enough as I tend to make my puzzle games too hard. But I think I failed and the game is still way to hard.

After fixing some bugs and having to update Unity because It wouldn't build for webGL, I was able to upload the game just before the deadline.

10/04

After working 30 hours the last 2 days, this day was more of the resting type.

I spend some time improving the game pages in itch.io and ludum dare, and sharing about the game in various places (including here), that's it!

Love the concept! The example video has got a really satisfying cascading/sequential feel to it, like somewhere between Ghost Leg and Peggle. Hard to describe, but as a user I'd feel very clever for solving these puzzles!

10/05 (day 4)

I made a script that controls the camera zoom and placment depending on the screen resolution and level size. It makes things look better and will same time as I won't have to manually place the camera in future levels.

I also reworked the interface. Now it looks good at any resolution. It is now possible to play with a smarthphone in both orientations.

I got a lot of feedbacks from the ludum dare participants, most notably:

•  Difficulty is too high overall.
• Big levels are confusing. They are almost impossible to predict so the gameplay becomes "die and retry", not really a puzzle anymore.

So I will have to make more easy levels, and try to replace the hard ones by smaller ones (but still hard).

Days 5, 6, 7

Mostly polishing, debugging and making my code/UI more modulable so I can reuse it in future projects.

I also made a build for android and it work like a charm.

This weekend I will start reworking the levels. I plan to make ~50 levels with a lower difficulty curve.

I will publish a 2nd version of the game soon.

New version online HERE:

• One new mecanic (atoms without electrons)
• 20 new levels
• Better polish
• Sould work on WEBGL-compatible mobiles (both orientations). Android version is coming soon for devices that don't support WEBGL

I updated the game. Changes are mostly better UI and bufixes.

I think this game is good to go unless new problems/bugs emerge. I will wait one week or so for feedbacks then release a final version and and an android build.

In the mean time I will start a new game project.

Quantum Splitter won the Ludum Dare 49!