2021 GMTK Jam Post-mortem

My second "successful" game jam started slow with the jam kicking off at 6am local time on Saturday, by the time the kids were sorted, chores done, got some much needed exercise, and walked the dog it was around 1pm before I started work. The dog walking was the inspiration for game, although originally I had the dog dragging the owner chasing a cat, but at some point decided the police dog idea worked a little better and gave me a couple of extra dimensions to work with. Fortunately this change happened while the graphics were just bouncing squares and rectangles.

I managed about 4 1/2 hours on the Saturday which got the main gameplay up and running. The weird physics that came with having two players connected via a spring joint proved a bit challenging and I must admit still needs some work as it's very easy for the two characters to get out of sync and then all sorts of weird stuff starts happening like the officer ending up in front of the dog being pushed.

Sunday was equally disrupted with multiple activities on during the day, once again I managed about 4-5 hours finishing around 11:30 pm. This time was mostly taken up with working on art and animations. Originally I had started with a sprite pack from the asset store but by the end a large part of this had been replaced or heavily modified with only the block obstacles remaining from the asset pack.

The Result

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result, for less than 10 hours of work there's something that's quite challenging to play. The scope was pretty good although it would have been nice to be able to add a bit more polish, a few particle, light, and sound effects would have really helped with the aesthetics and feel.

What worked

• Going 2d - I usually build 3d games but for such a short time 2d was much less stressful for a single developer. That said I do need more practice as I found myself spending a bit of time on silly stuff like making jumps feel less floaty.
• Pixel art - I've never done pixel art in my life but I can see the appeal, even a terrible artist like me can produce ok looking art.

What didn't

• Weird physics - the idea sounded good in theory but the weird but understandable side effects of having the two player characters joined will probably be too frustrating for a lot of players.