Playable Demo

itch.io Page: Click HERE to Play

Please reply for feedback, Thanks!

An exploratory study

Imagine a snowflake floating down slowly from the sky.

When the wind is still, it floats down slowly, from left to right…

The wind blows, at first gentle breeze, then as game progresses, it grows stronger and stronger, carrying the snowflake down to the ground or through the trees.

Game Play

When you tap on the screen, the snowflake changes direction.

Game Goal

Prevent the snowflake from touching the ground, the trees and other obstacles by tapping the screen to change its direction.

Discussion

I want to develop an emotionally evocative game that starts with the cold quietness that comes with a winter forest and progresses to wild winter storms of the arctic tundra.

I think this fit in very well with the Winter 2020 Game Jam theme.

In terms of the development approach, I want to start with a very simple gameplay and put it out there quickly to get feedback.

Then, as time allows, gradually improve the game play, aesthetics, etc. based on the feedback as well as available resources. I am also quite willing, if based on further exploration, to pivot it to something else if the concept is not working.

I’m hoping this kind of agile development will result in a reasonably good and playable game that I could submit to the game jam, not some half-baked ambitious game concept that I couldn’t finish in time.

I also might want to spend more time (since the game play will be relatively very simple) on developing the game aesthetics (or collaborate with an artist to do this) to enable it to have an emotional response from the player, as well as lots of playtesting in order to improve the game balance.

Also, since I’m kinda new at this, I’d like to get feedback on my approach, especially from the more experienced game developers.

Thanks in advance and best regards.

PS. Even the game title is tentative. If you have suggestions, please comment.

Day 1:

Just started exploring the snowflake floating idea using placeholders.

Uploaded a short demo video to youtube here if you want to see what I’ve got so far.

I’m hoping for more feedback (Just reply to this post).

Game Components

• snowflake: rotates both on its axis as well as axis offset from the path. Got this idea from a r/gamedev reddit post I read

  Although I think I’ve gotten the physics of the snowflake falling down, I’m not totally satisfied with how the player controls the snowflake – just by taps on the screen.

  This makes it easy to pickup and play on mobile – but not necessarily easy to master – I’m thinking of Flappy Bird’s mechanics in this regard.

• winds: the wind objects change the direction and speed of the snow flake.

• melters: not yet implemented.

  If the snowflake touches these objects, the snowflake melts, ending the game play for that level.

• snow bank: not yet implemented.

  the goal of the snowflake is to reach this part of the map.

• background: not yet implemented.

  makes the winter aesthetic of the game more prominent.

• minimap?: not yet implemented.

  might make the player be better oriented where the goal is (since the camera follows the snowflake)

TODO:

• ~Implement melters and snowbank (with placeholders)~ DONE
• Implement a scoring system
• Add additional intermediate objectives?
• ~Implement some way of showing the wind’s direction~ DONE
• Start research on implementing game assets using a paper cutout look and feel:
  • background
  • snowflake
  • melters
  • snowbank
• ~post a web version for testers to test out?~ DONE

That’s it for today. Ciao!

Day 2

STATUS

Lots of progress today, Woohooo!

This is where I’m at right now.

I got the basic gameplay working - I think its got a good game balance even at this early stage – it takes me about 5-8 tries before I successfully reach the goal.

I’m also validating the initial look and feel (paper cutout look and feel) and I think it may work.

The time to finish the level is pretty short at this stage, just about a minute and a half - but I can definitely extend it longer.

My basic plan is to finish the basic set of game components and assets as quickly as possible so that I have a playable demo that I can already submit (my MVP) and just continue iterating and enhancing it until the deadline.

I also plan to take time some tutorials on some of the optional stuff I might add.

I hope to have a playable demo soon and get some of the game jammers to check it out and give me feedback.

TODOS

• Add some more game assets:

  • ~borders - limits where the snowflake can go~ DONE
  • ~start point (currently a placeholder) - this should a cloud bank~ DONE
  • ~ground (snow bank)~ DONE

• ~Playable demo (HTML5?)~ DONE

• ~Wind direction indicator~ DONE

• Add a landscape background (maybe parallax view?)

• Particle effects when losing and winning

• Review the snowflake elastic stretch action to return to the start position when the game is reset - Is this cool or does this not fit into the game aesthetic?

• Nice to haves:

  • audio track
  • background noise

• Brainstorm more ideas if I have time before the deadline

• Things to think about:

  • Scoring system?
  • Minimap?
  • Guide indicators towards goal?

And if anybody can read this, POST ME A REPLY OR SOMETHING, I need the feedback! :D

That’s it for today, Ciao!

Major Update

The game is now PLAYABLE over the WEB!!!

Click here to play

To Play:

Just Click on the page (or tap on the screen on mobile) to nudge the snowflake to change its rotation.

There’s a one second interval after each click when the nudging is disabled.

Avoid the pine trees as they will melt the snowflake.

The white areas are the winds which will change the direction of the snow flake.

There’s a snowman somewhere below to the left of the map thats the target.

If the snowflake lands on the snowman, there’s a short message there – reply below with the message to confirm that you got there!

Day 3

STATUS

Not much done today, had to do other stuff.

Still, some progress:

• Reviewed some tutorials and documentation on Godot Particles2D.

• Implemented Particles for the Wind game objects (White squares) to indicate the direction it will drive the snowflake to.

• Updated some game components - reduced size of the snowflake so I don’t have to scale it down too much.

• Reviewed some art tutorials on making digital paper cutouts look-and-feel.

I’m almost done with my first ITERATION of the game.

After this, its mostly just refining the game:

• Improving the game assets (which I suck at :()
• Cleaning up - like making the collision areas more accurate to the visible game component.

I’m hoping for people to PLAY IT and review it for FEEDBACK to help me give it some DIRECTION as to what to prioritize to enhance the game.

Its pretty tempting to start refining (especially the game assets) but I promised myself I’d finish the basics first before going back to improving anything.

TODOS

• Complete initial implementation of all the game assets:

  • ~~Finish the Snow Flurry object (instead of the current white square)~~:
    • ~~create cloud like object (similar to cloudbank)~~ DONE
  • Add a background (maybe a parallax view?)

• Refine game assets

  • Add paper texture to all visible game components
  • Make drop shadows consistent across all game components
  • Refine collision areas to visible parts of the game components

• Review areas of improvement

  • HUD Buttons
  • Cloudbank
  • Snowbank

NICE TO HAVES

• Sound Effects
• Additional components to make it look like a giant winter scene cutout page.
• Intermediate Goal seeking - reach a particularly hard to get to area and get a reward or something

That’s all for now, Ciao!

Update for the Day 3

• Added a new devlog video

• Now features a paper textured snow flurry (WHITE BOXES are so yesterday :)).

• Latest version will always be available here

Thats all for now, Ciao!

Update

Just edited TODOs in previous posts to check what I’ve finished and what else needs to be done (just in case I forget).

Also updated blog title to add I’m looking for testers as well as a link to the playable demo.

Day 4

** skipped yesterday as I didn’t work on it yesterday **

STATUS

• Finished a placeholder background with parallax (lots of artifacts though - needs to be cleaned up)
• Fixed input so it now works on mobile browsers
• Added animation to the snowman target

Overall, you can NOW get a feel for the game (despite the wonky game art). I think its just refinement from here on out and seeing what else I can do to improve the game.

PLANS

• Might work on a “Tutorial introduction” to ease onboarding players (start out with simplest level).
• Might add sound effects or music
• Might add intermediate goals in the game mechanics? – touching the “winds” adds a “wind medallion” in a trophy bar.

TODOS

• Implement a proper start screen (with game title, art etc)
• Cleanup game assets

MISC

Playable link here - Snowflake in the Wind

The start screen looks like this:

Here’s a short video of the game play for Day 4:

#Day 5

STATUS

Not much work on it today, I asked a couple of friends to test it out.

Just thinking about the feedback so far.

TODOs

• Implement a better start screen/HUD
• Cleanup the game assets
• Implement a better end level dialogue.
• Look for sound FX, background music?

Day 12

Status

Sorry no updates for the last 6 days.

But at least I was able to submit it to the game jam.

The itch.io page is here.

Why the at least, you might be wondering?

Warning: Long post

Well, in short, my cats ate my homework.

Figuratively, that is. About 5 days ago, my hard drive got corrupted and I lost all my work. No, not just this game. All.my.work. All. Everything I’ve been working on for almost a year. Poof. Gone.

If not for github, I’d have lost everything and would have had to start from scratch. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as religious as I should have in pushing my latest updates so all I got were earlier copies. Also, I only pushed my master branch, not my other branches containing my experiments and alternative things I tried out and learned from.

Lastly, (and probably my worst sin) NO BACKUPS. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

What a cautionary tale about backing up, huh?

Yep. This is that.

Anyway, I’ve spent the last few days trying to recover what I can, and to try recreate what I lost.

Technically, everything I lost is either something I built and is still in my head or something I downloaded. So everything is still recoverable. So there’s that going for me.

Anyway, onto my status report.

After recreating as much of my lost work as I can (while it was still fresh in my mind) I decided to take the leap and upgraded to Godot 3.2, the latest version.

It was pretty smooth. And I got a better game programming UX.

Next, I added a text engine to make better dialogs to introduce the game. This way, the tutorial is now integral to the game play and I don’t have to make separate instructions on how to play it.

I also added levels so a player can progress from a simple challenge to more difficult ones in the higher levels. It also makes the game more narrative as the story can progress through the levels.

That was all I could finish before the deadline. I didn’t want to risk adding more than I could chew. I just focused on some testing and cleaning up.

Then, I focused on making a somewhat okay (or at least a so-so) submission copy and screen shots to finish out my day.

Long rant over

I’ll make another post on my TODOs and plans for the future.

And another post on my postmortem about my experience with this game jam.

That’s all for now, ciao!