Cursed: Post Mortem
I decided to join another Game Jam, this time with only 10 days to work on the project. The premise of this game jam was that they provide the character, and all the animations for that character, then the participants have to develop a game with that character, either as the main character or NPC. There was also the theme of "Halloween" that the game needed to adhere to. I decided that I wanted to try my hand at AI, and therefore made a game in which you play a recently cursed ghost, and you have to avoid reapers on your path to reach the church before sunrise, and get the priest to break the curse.
What Went Right?
Subtle Hints
Since this game requires the player to reach the end within 5 minutes, also while avoiding reapers, I wanted to try to confuse the player just a bit in the first area. The city blocks all the identical on purpose. However, I am not entirely heartless, I did leave a trail of hints that guide the player along the correct path. If the player looks close enough, they will notice that the street lights are only green along the correct path. The rest of the street lights are red.
Power Up Item
For the daring player, should they explore along another path, they will find the power up that would give them the ability to fly. This is helpful since the reapers can't actually jump, or fly. The player doesn't move faster, but they also don't have to stop to evade the reapers, therefore they should be able to find their way much quicker.
Artificial Intelligence
Having never really messed with AI before this project, there was a bit of a learning curve to get the behavior tree to work the way I wanted it to. However, I was able to add patrolling, investigating, and chasing with attack to the behaviors of the reapers.
Leading Lines
With the level being dark and foggy, it can be very hard to find your way. If you know where to look, I did lay out directional clues in an attempt to guide you along the right path. The police car is pointed toward the door of the barn with it's lights on. There are also leaves along the ground that lead right into the barn.
Designing with a Purpose
As the player is running through the city, it is very possible to end up with a trail of reapers following behind them. At this point in the path, the player can jump across the barricades, but the reapers cannot. This allows the player to lose the aggro of the AI, and also gives them a health power up just beyond the barricade to reward them. However, I couldn't just put barricades and call it a day. So I added a car on fire along with the barricades and some orange cones. This gives a bit of player affordance to give a reason for this supposedly random barricade.
What Went Wrong?
Interior Fog
After the player makes it through the city, there is a small warehouse they must pass through. This warehouse forces the players to pick up the de-buff that removes the ability to fly. However, the fog continues inside the warehouse. I tried to find ways to stop this from happening, but could not figure it out at all. At the end of the game jam, I decided to just opt for a slightly brighter area inside the warehouse, than outside in the city.
Better Ending
Given more time, I would have liked to have an animation from the priest actually curing the player of their curse, the sun coming up, happier music playing, and the player is now human again. However, in just 10 days, that just wasn't in the cards. I ended up leaving it alone for too long, in hopes that I could somehow figure out how to create cinematic animations overnight. So, I was left with a very rudimentary effect at the end of the level. It serves the purpose to bring conclusion to the game, but it is not on par with the quality that I made the rest of the game with.
Day/Night Cycle
I really wanted the timer for the game to also be reflected by the actual sunrise happening in the world. I tried a few different ways to do this, but at the end of the day I couldn't get any of them work properly, so I just left it as night time, and just set the timer.
Conclusion
As is the case with any game, or piece of art that we create, we are never satisfied with the way it turned out. We always feel like we could do more. Sure, there is a lot more that I would like to do with this game. At the end of the day, it is finished, and I turned it in for the game jam that it was intended for. I also won the grand prize for this game out of 10 other games. So I call this a win. I learned a lot, and I made a game that I can be proud of.