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Unexpected Jam

Hosted by Xavier Ekkel · #UnexpectedJam

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A jam submission

Building Relationships: BeginningsView game page

A game featuring buildings and relationship(s) and also fishing and exploration?

Submitted by tanatb (@ttanatb) — 25 minutes, 45 seconds before the deadline

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Building Relationships: Beginnings's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Overall	#12	3.630	3.630
Fun	#13	3.481	3.481
Gameplay Innovation	#14	3.259	3.259
Unexpectedness	#23	3.407	3.407
Audio	#25	3.296	3.296
Visuals	#30	3.481	3.481

Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Please list any pre-made art/music/code/other assets that you used.
3D Models - https://www.kenney.nl/assets
UI -https://edslashem.itch.io/rpg-asset-pack-2
Key Prompts - https://retrocademedia.itch.io/buttonprompts4
Item Icons - https://cazwolf.itch.io/caz-pixel-1
Font - https://somepx.itch.io/humble-fonts-gold
Textures (also adapted some into sprites) - https://opengameart.org/users/keith333
(Secret) Dog - https://pvgames.itch.io/medieval-town-and-country-interiors-bundle

Made in Unity
Using Cinemachine for Camera & Yarn for Dialogue
<a rel='nofollow noopener' referrerpolicy='origin' href='https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.cinemachine@2.3/manual/index.html'>https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.cinemachine@2.3/manual/index.html</a>
https://yarnspinner.dev/

How many members in your team?

Team of 2

List each team member's role, along with their social media / website links!
Tanat Boozayaangool (Everything but music) https://twitter.com/ttanatb
Rowan Waring (Music) https://twitter.com/theTreeSerok

Anything you want to say to players before they play?
On this island, you're a house that can fish, explore and build relationship(s) with other buildings.

Move with WASD
Control Camera with Mouse
Space to jump
Shift to sh'move
E to confirm
Tab to open inventory

The ending of the game is triggered at the volcano, but there are also lots of hidden secrets like 9 different chests and a super secret interaction with a super secret being!

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Comments

Eight BlackeySubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Great Game Indeed!!!

The Art is Very Gorgeous and the mix of the gameplay and music imbues one with a deep relaxation feeling. The animations of the buildings/chests are very cute and add a lot to their character development. I really like the fact of how everything is well integrated into the world .

It's amazing how you pulled the story and it's secrets in such a short amount of time and the rolling movement of the house is something else (I could roll through the island all day long).

I'll definitely would play Doll House again and again.

Artem Flo / aturbidflow / kubikámiSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Amazing. I've got story, I've got "real" story behind the story. I've got original characters and original controls. Only thing I can want, that let music be a little bit longer. For 30 minutes gameplay it going to be boring, despite the fact it's cute.

10 dollhouses of 10 dollhouses.

Submitted

Randomaly Bounty Gunter

Jeff RamosSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I have nothing bad to say, everything works well, and feels very good to control =)

You are into something here

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Glad to hear it, thanks for checking out the game! :)

Brazen Jester StudiosSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

That was wonderful, ty.

Submitted

Fear the Flossom

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for checking out the game and for the comment :)

Interjace3 years ago(+1)

My playthrough: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/743149716

Overall: Cozy game with a lot of personality. Very unique and honestly I loved most of it, I just wasn't much of a fan of the ending.

Unexpectedness: I mean I didn't expect jumping into a volcano, but it mostly felt random and not something that to me made the game stick out. At first I thought you'd work more on the theme of sacrifice that was hinted at in the beginning, that'd definitely make it more unexpected considering the coziness of this game.

Gameplay innovation: It was original and cozy. I really liked it. It had a certain aesthetic feel to it. However I did have some difficulties moving around, you wrote to me saying it was related to the bitrate so it might have been my own computer. But I really had to fight my way up that mountain.

Fun: Super cozy, one of the games that really stuck to me.

Visuals: I liked it, but the blurriness that showed the second I stood still kinda gave me a headache.

Audio: Coooozy. Suits the game.

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Ah, thanks for the playthrough and the review!

There's more to the game than just the main "story", such as movement skills from finding chests and a whole fishing minigame with a whole different layer of unexpectedness (that leads to a super secret interaction). The main story was actually the most rushed aspect of this game, because I ran out of time :(

I updated the game in V 1.1.0 to make some of these things easier to find.

The camera blurriness is actually based off of how much up/down you move the camera. It's not the best design, and that's what I'm fixing in the next patch, and I really appreciate being able to watch your reaction and see what happened.

I'm not sure if I can fix the controls, but hopefully it feels better when you're not streaming? Not entirely sure what happened there either, but thanks for streaming it -- wouldn't have known that it was an issue.

theoratkinSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Awesome game! It was so much fun exploring this little world; fishing, finding all the chests, reading funny dialogues. Very relaxing atmosphere, I love the graphics and the music.

It’s cool that you give so much traversal freedom that you can practically fly around the island. The only issue for me is that I had to fight with the camera movement a lot, sometimes it’s really difficult to look where you want to.

But otherwise fantastic game, one of the best games from this jam!

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Totally appreciate the feedback and thanks for checkin' out the game! Games like Night in the Woods and Spiritfarer kinda taught me to try to make sure the movement is fun, so at least there's something players can enjoy regardless of the rest of the game.

I've heard similar things about the camera -- it's my first time doing 3D camera for 3D movement so I kinda just made it work for me, whoops! That's exactly what is planned for V 1.2.0

Shot out gamesSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Fascinating game. Seriously "unexpected". Kinda sucked into this strange world. Really quite original.. I hate fishing though :) but this game gives you a sorta reason.. Just nice world building stuff.. Did you use the retro shader that Unity uses?? Overall fun experience. You could probably make this into something pretty special .. well written as well. Some "artsy" to the game.

Submitted

Near Death Experience

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

https://iaindowling.weebly.com/blog/unity-pixelated-render-effect

This is what I used to achieve the pixelated style. It's kind of a hack, and it basically takes the scene, renders it onto a texture, down-scale it, and have another camera look at the down-scaled texture. It probably should be some kind of post processing effect instead. Wouldn't recommend outside of a game jam.

But yeah, thanks for checking out the game and for leaving such a kind comment :)

Shot out gamesSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Cool.. I really like how you breakdown everything you did in these comments.. great stuff and informative. Thanks

DylanCalafSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

You made me feel bad about closing a game based on dating buildings.

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Haha, not sure if I understand this comment, but I hope you had fun 😅?

DylanCalafSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

The final text at the volcano is sad.

NoAverageJ0ESubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Really sweet game. Every little thing about it is charming - from the way the dialogue is written to the 'types of fish' and the quaint little island layout as a whole. I was a little confused once I reached the end, in that I wasn't sure if it had actually ended or not - but otherwise I found exploring this strange place an enjoyable, even inspiring journey. I feel like you really put a lot of love and enjoyment into crafting this and I think you should be really very pleased :)

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words it really means a lot to me that I was able to create a nice enjoyable experience for folks :) I do agree that the ending is a little confusing (it was definitely a little rushed) -- I kinda just intended for the game to end the moment the player jumps into the volcano. But there also happens to be 11 different fish, 8 treasure chests, and a secret interaction with a secret being :o

NoAverageJ0ESubmitted3 years ago(+1)

I was just heading to thank you for your comment on our my/our game submission when I realised I had a question for you! How did you create/generate the landscape for this game? I'm comfortable enough with 3D modelling but have never got a good answer when it comes to landscaping. Did you use unity's terrain tools? Thanks!

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

I just used Unity's terrain tool! I don't know if it's the best option out there (there were some issues with trees having both LOD groups and rotation/wind) and I think there are some asset store tools to improve on what Unity has to offer.

Rahil BladeSubmitted3 years ago

My exams preparations are currently going on at the moment as a result I have played very few games from the jam. But when i saw this game I wanted to check it out immediately!! This is an awesome looking aesthetically pleasing game that tells a imaginative short little story while impressing the audience with it's minimalistic game design.

I wanted to ask ... is the animation ragdoll based or you have pre-set the key frames ? It looks random at times (not that it's bad or anything just curious about how you meant to implement that)

Also if in the future you try to make a full version (which I hope you do) try adding a rhythm based element to it. I feel the movements and the world itself could really fit in with that kind of gameplay!

All in all a solid game that leaves me very curious for further updates!

Submitted

the last brain cell

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

I'm glad that you saw the game and that it hooked you into trying it, and I'm really glad that you liked the game! I really appreciate how you described the game -- it means a lot to me :)

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

So this was the asset I used for the houses: https://www.kenney.nl/assets/fantasy-town-kit and they came in separate parts and I don't know blender well enough to re-stitch the asset back together. So I just imported the separate meshes and created my own house models based off of the different parts.

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

For example, this is what my player object looks like:

it's really janky and I would not recommend it.

I added the animation controller to the Player object and animated just the 'Model' object. I have a similar set up for the NPCs and that allowed me to utilize the same animation across all the different NPCs. Nothing is rigged, there is no ragdoll, I'm just squash-and-stretching the base mesh.

When you're moving around it's just the combination of this idle animation (that actually always plays LOL) and the wacky physics makes it feel ragdoll-y despite nothing actually being ragdoll-like.

If you're curious, feel free to take a look at the repo https://github.com/ttanatb/BuildingRelationshipsV2 just take note that I excluded all the assets that I don't have permission to redistribute.

Also I just wanted to say thanks again, because I'm really glad at least someone is wanting to see more from this little experience I've made. I'm always a fan of sprinkling rhythm-based elements into the environment, but I doubt I'd be able to scope that in for this project, whoops. Regardless, thanks for leaving such a kind comment -- you've really made my day

Rahil BladeSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Haha no need to thank me!

Your game is amazing and Thank YOU for showing the animation setup! I think the way you implemented it, even though it's manually done still gives that unexpected vibe in the movements!

Continue making such great games you have a bright gamedev future ahead of you!

If I get some time again I will go through the game again ... I think i did not catch all the fishes lol.

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Ah, your comment really does mean a lot to me! You can't make me not thank you 😂 And there may or may not be a secret interaction that you can activate by collecting all the fish 👀

I really appreciate what you said about my gamedev future, can't wait to make more games (maybe Ludum Dare next)!

Rahil BladeSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Just finished your game again! This time got all the 10 fishes (that barrel was a sneaky little one) also got the ticket and the interaction!

I took my time and found all the treasures chest as well, the one at the top was extremely UNEXPECTED, initially I thought it you forgot to remove some object but then after receiving the very SMALL number of shoes 😂😂😅 I investigated !!!

It kind of also gave me the "a short hike" vibes!

Without exaggerating or praising you too high this game could have a full blown commercial release maybe not in this form, but some of the ideas here can be expanded upon into something special!

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

The dialogue with the small amount of shoes is literally my favorite piece of dialogue I've ever written, and I'm glad that you found it funny :)

I'm also really glad you found ALL the chests! As far as I know, you're the first to do that (or to tell me that they've done so).

I really enjoyed A Short Hike so I'm glad that the game reminded you of it!

Thanks for playing it through a second time, really means a lot to me :D Also appreciate the amount of praise you've given to the game, it's made me really want to put more time into gamedev :)

Lor EntertainmentSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

This one is just oozing with personality. I love the little bounciness added on all the houses, and it feels great to play! Dialogue is hilarious too. Only thing was that I thought we were supposed to jump in the volcano, and I died :(

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Whoops, the volcano is the end-game trigger and I didn't have enough time to add a reset button or a 'wait actually i don't want the game to end i want to go back and pet the dog' button. Definitely things I want to add in V1.1.0 !

JK5000Submitted3 years ago(+1)

This was a weird and fun little game. I wish the game was voice acted. And the issue with pressing the E key, made the game a bit frustrating to play. Overall an interesting jam game.

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Oh boy, I don't even wanna think about how i'd align the voice acting to the text scrolling 😅

Could you elaborate a little bit on the issue with pressing the E key? Was it that sometimes the game wouldn't show you the next text immediately?

JK5000Submitted3 years ago(+1)

"Could you elaborate a little bit on the issue with pressing the E key? Was it that sometimes the game wouldn't show you the next text immediately?" Yes, it was super slow. For me the issue was that I got impatient, and begin to click the E key a lot, and then I also begin to skip some of the dialog.

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Ah, thanks for the clarification!

lisyarusSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

One of the best that I’ve seen on this jam so far! Loved the title wordplay as well. Awesome job!

Submitted

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Thanks for checking it out and for your kind comment :)

Chase of BassSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Fun and charming! Really good concept and unique! Loved the music and the overall vibe! Awesome work!!

Submitted

Chase of BassSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Also, I love the title pun! xD

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for checking out the game and for leaving a nice comment :)

Turned Into A NewtSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

Interestingly concept, that was definitely unexpected! Game had lots of charm, and nice chill music. One thing I had trouble with was that "E" didn't always advance the dialogue, it seemed to get stuck sometimes. Overall very unique game.

Submitted

Down Beat Dungeon

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Ah, those are pauses -- it's the default implementation of Yarn and I wished I had more time to make it feel more evident that the speaker paused. Regardless, I really appreciate your comment and the time you took to play the game :)

Deleted account3 years ago

Deleted post

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Oh nooo that's a very weird bug :\ It really does sound like the frame rate is low and yeah the house can be super hard to move at certain spots (something I plan to fix in like V 1.1.0 or so), but you unlock jumping pretty early on . Not sure what the issue with the camera is though... But I could try to add quality settings to hopefully amend the issue.

Thanks for checking it out, regardless! :)

encon-artsSubmitted3 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Five star everything. I loved it, those chords I could listen to for hours, the fishing system was just plain fun, especially when I tried fishing that Barrelcuda, and it went off the guage, that's the little things I love. The game was just weird in the best way possible! Also there is a little bug where you press escape mid conversation and the text begins floating in front of you!

Submitted

Don't Push My Button(s)!

tanatbDeveloper3 years ago

Ah thanks for letting me know! I've fixed that bug and I'm glad you enjoyed the Barrelcuda :) I wish I had more time to actually balance all the fish difficulties, but I'm glad you still enjoyed it!