Over the Hedge [Jam Post-Mortem]

The Garden Beyond: A Post-Mortem

             Imagine this...you're back in middle school and too broke to get new games but you love your Xbox 360 you lucked your way into and all the demos on it! You're clicking on the demo that's had you coming back like you'll snag a little more gameplay out of it; Overlord. Now I've had Overlord and it's following games on Steam for a while; but last time I tried to play it was just not running. But this night I finally got it to play!

So I acted like a child again running to the store and buying a soda before I booted up Steam Link on my TV to play this banger in its full glory. However child me WISHED AND DREAMED of being able to make games; and now I just have those skills after years of practice. And I really wanted to try making a game like Overlord! So I started to see if there was any jams that I could find a unique way to spin the mechanics from this beautiful game.

Then I stumbled upon Mini-Jam, the ol' jam I used to frequent and often failed back when I first started. So I joined and locked since it started in 20 minutes. By the time the 10 minute to start I started looking for models on Sketchfab as I normally do since I suck at modeling and want to focus on gameplay. The theme is Rabbits and I quickly found myself no longer making a game like Overlord but writing the story concept to a visual novel 3D platformer following an orphan named Vivi after the black mage in Final Fantasy IX.

The Beginning
I found a super cute 3D model that inspired this story and I love exploring not-reality based worlds that can just be wild and wacky. I love Alice in Wonderland since it helped me get into books and escape as a child which led to many great series. I also love little indie platformers that offer decent sized levels and focus on just being fun or unique in their own way like Lunistice. 
And I love animes that follow a very serious and grounded issue but explore them in a more fantastical way to not only be entertaining but to showcase the struggles the characters go through. Black Rock Shooter is one of my favorite animes like this, one reality the characters are fighting in a futuristic end of the world kinda scenario; in the other reality they're just high school students trying to navigate social interactions.

Taking all of these things and letting them craft the visual novel aspect of this game; I locked in and started crafting the platformer side of it.

The jam started at about 11pm-12am so it was end of day for me, but I got the character model in; which required me to rig it myself because Mixamo was struggling. Not a big deal, I used to rig models all the time because I used to really love the art of rigging models. Then I got the Unity project setup since I've been trying to expand my skills in Unity instead of just using Godot.

With the character finally inside the game I added animations and got the basic character movement going with a basic camera; then went to bed. I was tired and I was going to need my brainpower for later.

Whiskers to the Grind Stone
Right out the gate I woke up at around 10pm and walked my way down to the corner store and got myself a Monster Coffee then got to work. I spent the rest of the morning into the afternoon working on the player controller and camera; it was hard. Things just kept not working and eventually when I was almost done I had to add more stuff to make it feel good.

Finally by about 3-4pm I was finally working on levels since I was supposed to finish them today; which didn't happen. But I did end up refining the movement code, I made some decisions that made the animations feel great including a Spider-Verse styled 12 frame animation style. Which made it looks and feel so good compared to before. I also added in bouncy mushrooms and they're pretty fun! Finalizing 2 level block outs by the end of the night.

I didn't feel great but I mean I did A LOT that day and even finished writing the script and got some smaller stuff up and running. This would leave the next 2 days completely open for getting the last 3 levels made, polished, add in the dialogue system; and so on.

As the next day hit I went to work in high hopes! Then they crashed and burned like Icarus daring to trust his invention over the gods!

The day at work was so bad I had to actually take a nap and then I was so mentally cooked I didn't even try to do anything. I did draw up some level designs but beyond that my brain was melted so I played Inzoi with my partner for a bit then went to bed to wake up early.

Fast forward to that morning I had less than 2 hours to crank out EVERYTHING! I got some work done then went to work expecting another horrible day. It was actually pretty good all things considered, however I had my reminder that me and my brother's Baldur's Gate 3 session as we traverse the rest of the Underdark! So I knew I would have 3pm to 6-7pm to work on stuff; but then the car needed an inspection and...all my time was gone. I got home and just got a decent little build out, even added music to it and finished the code for the level switching.

Wonderland Awaits!
Unfortunately life striked over and over and I wasn't able to finish the game. But all is not lost! The artist I talked to through the jam wants to finish up the artwork side of things and I really want to see this game put together. I mean the script is there. The assets are there. Everything is there. It just needs to be assembled.

But since the jam version is submitted and we're aiming to release a "complete edition" of the game after the jam; I want it to feel good! This means I'm going to add sprint in, transitions between areas; and just try to not scope up the game or polish too much but make it better.