Falling Thingies Post Mortem

Introduction

During the Alakajam 21 game jam, we created Falling Thingies. The theme was Gravity, and we had 2 days complete the game. The team consisted of Myself (Viktor) and Calvin Jee.

Timeline

Pre-Jam

I was scared when preparing for this jam. I knew I was going to be making all the graphics and gameplay. This isn’t something I’ve done a whole lot of. Normally I rely heavily on teammates to make graphics while i focus on the gameplay. And this was also going to be my first 48 hour jam. So I’ve committed to pushing myself on the speed and the graphics departments. Verrrry spooky.

The Pre-Jam period for Alakajam was awesome. I got to submit some themes, I got to vote on other people’s themes, and I got to see the top themes before the jam started. I loved the process! Unfortunately the theme that ended up winning (Gravity) put a wrench in my plans to remake one of my favorite Neopets games “Dubloon Disaster” pictured below. But alas! We soldier on!

Jam Begins…

Right before the Jam began I started looking for a musician because doing the art, the music, the sfx and the gameplay would be too much for me. Luckily one of the first people I contacted, Calvin, agreed right away! He’s a great sport and was an absolute pleasure to work with. I gave him the quick brief of what I was making and access to an early prototype. He began making music right away!

The Development

Over the next few days I worked very hard to get the game to a good state. Not much to report, just steady progress on making the thingies, thangies and super thingies. Applying lots of blur, glow, a moving background and so on…

What Went Well

Everything went well, i would say! The gameplay got up and running very quick. Thanks to it being so simple, it didn’t take much time to implement. The music was also done well within the time limit so there was no extra crunch or anything. Me and Calvin even had time to playtest a bunch, discover bugs, and fix bugs at a leisurely pace.

• Comment from Calvin (Music): Visuals and scope were set very early, which greatly facilitated my ability to create cohesive music. Knowing what the game would look like and how it would progress through play allowed me to commit to the style of music and the concept of evolving intensity and just go full steam ahead.

Challenges

The main thing I was pushing myself on the entire time is aesthetics. I was deathly afraid of the game looking bland or boring. I’m not highly skilled at making great art, so i had to rely on shaders and effects applied to primitive geometry. I think it worked out ok!

• Comment from Calvin (Music): I was pretty busy during the jam and our schedules were a little out of sync. It made it difficult to do any play testing on my end and give appropriate and timely feedback. But the programmer had great vision and scope (and play testers on their end, I think) so it wasn’t detrimental. Just something I would have liked to help out more with.

The Final Product

Overall, I am pleased with the final product. Im considering putting a bit more effort in some variation and putting it up on the mobile app stores. Why not!

• Comment from Calvin (Music): Very pleased with the outcome. Equally important is that I was very pleased with the process. Great working relationship which shows in the final product. I’m glad I could contribute my piece to this awesome project.

Reception

Final Game: We had 50 users try it out and leave lots of comments as well. There was even a scoreboard built into Alakajam where a handful of users competed on high scores! It was awesome to see people climb to such high scores and saying such nice things about the game. I was worried that my entry where its mostly me making the graphics wouldn’t be received well, but it turned out great. Lots of people showed love for how the game looked and played.

We ended up winning the jam! (In the Team category). It was a great set of devs to jam with, everyone left such useful and thoughtful feedback and the two streams ran by the organizers were great too! I’m looking forward to my next Alakajam!

Based on the reception it has had on Newgrounds and Alakajam, it seems like a good candidate to pop onto the mobile stores real quick but there are still some unanswered questions. How does the level end? How does the game progress? What variation can be added in order to have multiple different levels? All of these questions and more! We’ll see where the game ends up in the future… I’ll keep you posted!

Links

• If you want to give the game a try, head over here!
• Check out Calvin’s stuff here : https://bsky.app/profile/calvinjee.bsky.social

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