Today the GMTK Game Jam 2022 kicked off, with the theme "🎲 Roll of the Dice 🎲". Cute!
I sat down to come up with some ideas...
Meta game
- Roll dice to get and lose dice
Platformer
Every time you jump your dice face changes- Three rolls per level
- You can see ahead and you hope for the easy path
- Affects your ability
- Branching paths per ability
- Abilities
- Wall Jump
- Crawl
- Climb
- Teleport (activate special block)
- Blast (open wall / obstacle)
Text game
- Obvious choices plus a wild card
- Or dice roll to make choices for you
- Characters ask what you're doing
First-person game
- Help learning about Unity for Untitled Story Game
- Use Synty Studios POLYGON assets
- Physical dice affect environment
I immediately fell in love with the platformer idea. I loaded up Unity with my son by my side. Have you ever sat down to write something, but the blank screen stares back at you with unrelenting mockery? Or perhaps you've sat in front of a blank canvas to similar effect? Well it's like that, but instead of one media to work with you have all media to consider.
What's my art going to be? I can't even start my level without art. I guess I can use prototyping assets. Will I have time to replace prototype art with something original? Where will I get original art? I could buy some. Will I have time for sound effects or music? How can I show the character's abilities on screen in an intuitive way? Should the character slowly unlock abilities to be able to randomly pick from? How would that work? I guess I can manipulate the character controller programatically? Also LEVEL DESIGN. Also be fun. Also have fun?
I think you get it. I would love to do this in a small team, and in fact that is encouraged. It's difficult to half commit to strangers on the internet some of your time when in all likelyhood said stranger is much younger with much more flexibility in their schedules (not to mention more stamina).
I think I will be gracefully bowing out of this one. I know my limitations. Instead, I might spend some more time working on Untitled Story Game.