Introduction
During the Ludum Dare 59 game jam, we created Badcaster Shneebly. The theme was Signal, and we had 3 days complete the game. The team consisted of Myself (Viktor), Prav, Manisha and Keely. I’ve worked with Manisha and Keely on two other Ludum Dares but this time Manisha added Prav who is another local Toronto gamedev!
We contemplated meeting up in person to work on the game but our schedules didn’t align very much. Maybe next time!
Timeline
Pre-Jam
We formed the team relatively early, a few weeks out. So we had the luxury of chatting for a bit, and since Me and Keely and Manisha have already worked on three seperate jams, the workflow and roles were already pre-defined and locked in.
There was a bit of trepedation surrounding what Keely would be up to since we had Prav doing art. Luckily once we got going that wasn’t an issue. There was plenty of stuff for Keely to do. He ended up spending as much time as me!
Jam Begins…
We got into a call as soon as the theme was dropped and ended up deciding before the call ended on the game we were going to make. I had lots of ambitions around the voice-over component of Shneebly and perhaps even sneaking into people’s game sessions but all of that ended up being scrapped for time. I didn’t even get to voice Shneebly in the end.
Some of the ideas we had that we discarded are:
- the Fairy Bubble Pop game from Neopets
- Switching an old school wire switchboard
- something with trombone champ that i dont remember
The Development
Development went ok. I was able to deploy builds periodically as I was developing the features. The game doesn’t really resemble anything I’ve played before from a gameplay perspective so I didn’t have much to lean on for UI/UX.
During development myself, manisha, prav and I think also Keely were busy doing other real life stuff. I was working, Prav had plans, etc. We didn’t no-life this jam and work to the fullest.
More details about what went right and what went wrong are below…
What Went Well
As per usual with Keely on board, we get a really funny mascot and premise. That went well, and I think the graphics overall look nice. Given more time, we could’ve really made this city pop, but even in a day or two, it looks really nice!
Comment from Prav (Art): The art style came out pretty much close to what i envisioned in my mind, and this being my first jam i think it all went pretty well overall, considering the tight deadline
Comment from Keely (Art & Design): The game visuals and music turned out pretty good.
Comment from Manisha (Audio): I think the process of audio development went pretty well, and looking back at my progress clips over the course of the jam helped me realize that. I was able to put together a basic drum beat and some potential sounds pretty quickly, and I feel like I’m getting more efficient with GarageBand. By the end of day one, we had already settled on a clear idea, which helped us get to work the next day. I also had time to record voice lines for Shneebly, which I think added a little more personality to the character and vibe of the game. Setting the game in Toronto made it feel more personal since our whole team is based here.
Challenges
Boy oh boy! In addition to the usual challenges of making a game in 3 days while working a day-job there came some relatively new ones!
Our artist Prav was using software (Procreate) that he never used before, and wasn’t communicating as much as we would like. Roughly half of the jam was spent without any game-ready asset completed. And on top of that, even when we got near the end, the jam assets weren’t prioritized properly. We had 29! different tree assets!
Thank god for Keely taking over as a middle man between me and Prav because if it wasn’t for him, we would’ve had no time for anything. Prav only send the psd files, not individual pngs for us to use. So Keely had to go in and separate out every layer. This was done on multiple occasions and it would’ve taken up a ton of my time.
Also, here’s an exchange that would help color the experience I had for you:
- Viktor: You went a whole day (yesterday) without sending anything, its scary
- Prav: Yeah cause i was learning procreate. Life is a gamble when you work with me. People realize way too late.
- Viktor: You should’ve told me before we started.
- Prav: I believe in practical lessons. Life doesn’t come with a manual. Anyway goodnight see you tomorrow.
Comment from Prav (Art): I wasn’t able to finish the whole city so we ended up duplicating assets, but i’m still happy with the way it turned out. Definitely could practice more art using Procreate.
Comment from Keely (Art & Design): We didn’t reckon with any of the game design problems until the last few hours.
Comment from Manisha (Audio): One of the main challenges was figuring out the right sound and mood for the game. I initially imagined something more comedic and chaotic to match Shneebly’s character, but by the midpoint of the jam I realized the gameplay required a slower, less distracting track so players could focus. I also ran into some issues where certain instruments didn’t end up fitting as well as I had hoped. These factors made it difficult to fully match my original vision, and in the end the music might have worked better as a funny villainous theme rather than something fully integrated into gameplay.
The Final Product
I felt really bad about the final product. It ended up being too confusing and esoteric. Given a few more days we could’ve polished up this relatively uncommon game design and make it more easy to understand but such is the nature of weekend game jams. Not enough time!
I think we could’ve done a lot better when scoping this game and organizing what needs to be done and what can be avoided. Keely did great work showing first-timer Prav where he can cut corners and save time while I was too busy on day-job and programming tasks to handle management.
Comment from Prav (Art): Definitely happy with the outcome, maybe next time i’ll do a better job of planning things before execution and probably use a software that i’m familiar with to save time!
Comment from Keely (Art & Design): I’m a little sad about the outcome tbh. I don’t feel like I’m enjoying the process of game jams as much anymore. Maybe I need to stick to coding 🙃.
Comment from Manisha (Audio): Overall, I like the concept of the game and think Shneebly is a really fun and memorable villain. The idea of him messing with people’s TVs is genuinely funny and fits the signal theme well. I do wish we leaned further into the comedic side and refined the level design more, since the user experience felt a bit confusing at times. That said, I think the game has a lot of potential, and I really enjoyed contributing to the audio and helping shape the overall feel of the project.
Reception
Final Game: We had 98 Browser plays for the game over the Ludum Dare rating period. Lots of comments and feedback as well, thank you everyone for checking it out! Here are the scores:
There were 1213 other entries
| Criteria | Rank | Percentile |
| Overall | 620th | Top 51% |
| Fun | 680th | Top 56% |
| Innovation | 387th | Top 32% |
| Theme | 165th | Top 14% |
| Graphics | 324th | Top 27% |
| Audio | 255th | Top 21% |
| Humor | 179th | Top 15% |
| Mood | 482th | Top 40% |
Just to add a little bit more commentary now that you’ve seen the scores… Isn’t that facinating? After 6 years of doing Ludum Dare, I ended up making one of my worst-reviewed games. The chart looks like this:
Makes me doubt if I’m improving, or at least improving faster than the standards for a good game are changing… Time will tell I suppose!
Links
- If you want to give the game a try, head over here:
- Wishlist Keely’s’s upcoming steam game here:
- Wishlist Manisha’s’s upcoming steam game here:
- Check out Prav’s website here:
