Part 2: What To Do, What To Do...

The next morning I found myself in a much better place but still with some problems that needed to be fixed before I could consider the game at all playable. A similar issue to the block dropping was happening when a player would sometimes place a block on a tile, that being our old friend Mr Left Block couldn't help but get involved and try to set itself in the same place. This made it impossible to pick up that other block again without lefty coming along.

It was Sunday morning and I knew I didn't have enough time to mess around with this much longer. I needed to be able to have the central mechanic down and usuable and then I could spend the rest of the remaining time building some levels. If possible, I thought, I'll try and add complexity to the game by having hazards that the monster blob could fall into if the player does not manage their blocks effectively enough. Unfortunately however, that complexity would never come.

I gave myself until noon to get the block placements sorted but it wouldn't actually be until 3pm that this would eventually be fixed (and I can't for the life of me remember how so that solution will just be lost to the void I suppose).  With 3 fewer hours to make the levels I did try and implement some sort of water hazard; a simple river gap that the player would have to time themselves to cross or that the monster buddy could go across on a raft but I just couldn't get the collision to trigger a death sequence. I abandonded this almost as quickly as I had tried to set it up and instead focused on making a set of levels that the player could go through, finish the game and at least have some semblence of accomplishment.

I made the series of levels, starting with a forced tutorial where the player can't really do anything else but move the blocks into their corresponding tiles. This is something I picked up from watching the GMTK episode on Half Life 2's Invisible Tutorial, the idea of setting up a scenario which forces the player to perform certain actions in order to progress. I thought the blocks were stood out against the rest of the world as instructions quite clearly so the player would feel compelled to interact with them somehow. Granted I still had to put the controls in the games description (didn't make time to create an in game control prompt or screen) as well as basically saying what the player should do however an active or 'hidden' tutorial is something I strive to incorporate into anything I make as I believe this can help immerse the player into the game from the moment they start playing which can help the player commit themselves to the world I am trying to build.

As mentioned, I made a set of levels, each of which adding another block/ direction for the player to go in. I added some pre-existing audio (from the same 1BIT Canari pack used for the animations) and presentation wise, I was good to go. I finshed all this this until about half an hour before the deadline so now it was a case of simply testing the game start to finish, building the game, getting some screenshots, create a gif, write and description, create a zip file, upload it and submit the game. Sounds straightforward.

I missed the deadline. I uploaded the game at exactly 8pm but the jam deadline was 8.03pm so I should have had time right? I uploaded the game but did not consider at all the submission process to the jam. I must have had it in my head that just because I've uploaded the game to itch that must mean it's been submitted. I then found the form to add the game to the jam's list of submissions and just as I had filled it in and hit the submit button... an error message. "The jam is now closed and no longer accepting submissions." Bugger.

I became frazzled towards the very end because I was convinced I needed to upload any screenshots or promo images to the game in time for the deadline as well which turned out not to be the case as I discovered on the discord 20 minutes later. I thought I had failed the jam and yet I didn't feel disappointed by this. I made something playable that I created myself using C#, a language I hadn't even touched until a year ago and I was strangely proud of what I had made. If I couldn't upload it to the jam, then hey, I'll just share amongst a group of others who undoubdtedly would be in the same boat as me. 

But then this lucky bastard got himself a life line. Mark made a post on the discord saying any late submissions have until 8.30 to send him an email with a link to the game and an explanation as to why it was submitted before the deadline. I was honest with him, I had uploaded the game before the deadline but got caught up in the form a little too late and couldn't submit. I sent the email and while a little apprehensive that I still might not get into the jam, I waited patiently. About 40 minutes later, I got an email back from Mark with a link to the submission form. I filled it out quicker than you can say "Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam Two Thousand and Twenty" and my game became one of over 5,000 submissions this year.

Really I should have been able to submit this on time. The fact that I was seconds away from the deadline says more about how I managed the development over the weekend than anything else but I am forever grateful to Mark and his team for that grace period. It really made my day to be able to submit my game.

So there it is, Which Way got submitted and now we are eagerly awaiting the results of the jam. While I don't expect to get highly rated for this (the blocks are an interesting gimmick but there is no challenge in the game right as of the jam version) I do hope many people play it and give feedback.

In my next post I'll be writing about what's next for this game if I do decided to flesh it out a bit more.