2021 GameDev.TV Game Jam

Recently, the 2021 GameDev.TV Game Jam was held, with the theme this year being "All that glistens is not gold." The jam took place over 14 days, with the only stipulation being that all assets must be free and that source code must be made available so that other participants can learn from the games of others.

As a solo dev, I wanted to make a simple game that helped to use and reinforce the jam's theme, ultimately revolving around a single mechanic. I initially thought about a mechanic to build a game around that would involve obtaining valuables to backfire on the player. Remembering that gold has some substantial weight, I decided that the mechanic would be that the gold obtained would weigh the player down and cause the player to get slower.

Naturally, the setting that fits perfectly with this mechanic is that of a pirate ship. I went online to Kenney Assets to see whether or not any assets would fit this theme, and luckily enough, there were two different pirate packs available: one in 3D and one in top-down 2D. Not having figured out what type of game I would make, I decided to go with the 2D pack and make the game a top-down shooter.

Given only two weeks to work with and develop this game solo, I wanted to keep the game as simple as possible (while also trying to avoid scope creep). I used GitHub's issue-tracking system to scope out some generic tasks and what I wanted to accomplish within the limited time frame. Randomness would work best with the idea that this gold chase had an air of mystery. The islands and ships randomly appearing out of thin air would allow for some procedural generation that would allow me some flexibility and save some time (as I am primarily a programmer, which allowed me not to worry too much about level design).

As time progressed, specific issues within the game came to light. While slowing the ship down was an interesting mechanic, it threw the game's balance. There was no way to recover speed, and the player slowed to a crawl, eventually making the game less fun. Ultimately, I decided to add a fort into the game, which would serve as a "bank" of sorts. The bank allowed the user to store gold, enabling them to get their speed back and allowing for a more strategic way to play the game.

Finally, with some UI implementation and a leaderboard using PlayFab, the game was playable. There were still some bugs (hotfixes were allowed after the deadline), but ultimately, the game's core loop was there. With 15 minutes to spare, I submitted the game on Itch.io.

After submission, however, there was some feedback from users about how the game played. Primarily, one user had stated that they had a bank feature that would have been a better addition to the game, which was problematic as I had added it earlier. My original intention was to allow the player to discover this naturally through gameplay (the fort is the only object that spawns in the same place every time, the northeastern corner of the map). To allow players to discover it naturally, I added a hint about this preexisting feature to the loading screen. In addition to this change, the hotfix included other bug fixes and UI updates.

You can play the game below or see the official entry at https://ndaygamedev.itch.io/fools-gold