Friday 18:00:
I didn't have joined any team yet. I am a shy guy and was a little nervous about talking to strangers. However, we formed a team in no more than 10 minutes. In that environment, everyone could know each other very fast.
19:00:
We started brainstorming. The theme is very confusing: "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." We came up with different ideas, such as seeing the world in different lens, making dreams, etc. The guys who attended GGJ last year said that we should focus on replayability and make our game arcady (like a game on the arcade). It seemed our direction was right.
21:00: Someone came up with the "Tracks with different colors" idea. Everyone seemed to enjoy this idea. After that, we decided to make a game with this idea. The game didn't differ from the original idea very much. So a good idea is also important, because it is very straightforward and we just realize it without much confusion.
22:00: Our team have two programmers: David and me. I am a poor guy who has been a sound designer for a semester and hasn't programmed for a long time; David is a programmer who never touch Unity3D before. However, we started very fast. I began prototyping and came up with a small ball rolling on the track. David is a geek and a fast-learner from Google Pittsburgh. He learned these codes super fast and began coding instantly.
23:00: There are four artists in the team. They decided to come up with a prototype level the next day.
The physical system in Unity3d is works super fluently.
24:00: So tired. They went back and decided had a meeting on Google Hangout the next day.
Saturday
10:00: We had enough sleep and began to build the level.
11:00: We imported the level they built and struggled with the pipeline a little bit because the tracks' sizes were not right. We tried to communicate with artists to let them build the tracks in the right size.
12:00: We playtested it. Unfortunately, there seem too much going in the level: There are 15 levels stuck in one single level and players would be too overwhelmed when they first see the level. We decides to rebuild the level and add some tutorials.
21:00: We added more functions: Checkpoints, pausing the game, etc. No one was talking about adding a story to this game. So just let it go.
24:00: I was too lazy, so I went to my project room and fell asleep. Other teammates seemed work over night.
Sunday:
8:00: I looked up some sound effects. I also found a music piece called 'Crystal Cave'. It cannot be more suitable for the game.
12:00 We began sprinting. The tutorial was done: it can pause the game and tell players to press 'A', 'S', 'D' at the right time. The tutorial is successful in my point of view: it tells the right thing at the right time, so players understand the game controlling instantly. We also added a picture manual at the beginning and I think that is redundant: there is too much information in the picture which can be told in the game very effectively.
The reworked level is much better: The beginning part is clear, easy and fun. The rest part is still too difficult. We also need more checkpoints in the level. I told David to do so but he was too familiar with the game and he thought there were enough checkpoints. He is the best players of this game in the world: He played it for hundreds of times!
It turned out that when players failed in the game, they seemed very frustrated by the fact that they had to start from the checkpoint very before.
14:00 We put crystal shaders in the game, it looks gorgeous!
16:00 We uploaded the game at the last minute.
To my surprise, the game was popular when showed in the RPIS and we won an audience award. Maybe that's because we always keep it simple and we can finish it within the time and resource constraints. We stressed on replayability so that we put it in the game unintentionally. Maybe we used crystal shaders which make the game's appearance super attractive.
We may continue on the development of this game. Who knows.
