[SA Game Jam 2016] ShishkaBOOM

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- Jam name (SA Game Jam 2016)
- ShishkaBOOM
- Hobbyist
- 72hr entry

Team name: Knife Media

Members:
Jack Shiels
Sam Shiels

ShishkaBOOM is a physics game about a young, luckless shishkebab named Jerry.

Players control Jerry as he his thrown asunder through a maelstrom of conveniently placed raw foodstuffs. By using bombs and other special abilities, players will skewer their own unique recipes of veggies, meats and sweets to gain points and satisfy customers in the braai of a lifetime.

Resources used:

Some texture maps from textures.com
Some PBR materials from share.allegorithmic.com
Scion Post-Processing
Uber Shaders
A star and a heart clipart from clker.com to help trace the highscore banner and health in Gimp (lol)
Kevin Mcleod music: incompetech.com
Sounds from freesound.org

LATEST DEBUGGED BUILD: (21/07/16 - bug fixes, difficulty tweaks)

Windows 64bit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwdcwb1v2a4kaes/ShishkaBOOMWindows.zip?dl=0
Mac OS X: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqhy3ug735i94o6/ShishkaBOOMMac.zip?dl=0

KNOWN ISSUES:

1. Unity is bugged when you play at non-native resolutions. Appears to be an engine bug. Play windowed to fix.
2. Score previously wouldn't reset after a new game. Because of this, only the latest build can submit highscores to the database.
Thanked by 1Larkison

Comments

  • Edit: added logo
  • Modeling the starting cliff for the game:

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  • This looks very promising.. Be prepared to eat my dirt.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • edited
    This looks very promising.. Be prepared to eat my dirt.
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    ;)
  • Getting the game camera view and colour processing right.

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  • More foliage :)

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  • Together with the main menu. Tada! The entire game is in one scene. Because efficiency.

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  • With a backdrop

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  • edited
    Meat!

    EDIT: also peppers :D

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    Thanked by 1Fengol
  • wow!

    I wonder what the controls are like? but still wow!!!
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • Kree8 said:
    wow!

    I wonder what the controls are like? but still wow!!!
    Hey thanks!

    Essentially, you slow down time and place bombs to change the trajectory of the kebab stick. It's about satisfying customers in the shortest amount of time and in creative ways.

    For example, alternating vegetable colours will give extra points etc. It has a nice combo system. My brother and coworker is busy getting the prototype ready, so we should have a playable version tomorrow sometime!

    Overall it's a pretty simple little game, but we hope it's addictive enough to keep people playing :]

  • bombs, burning meat/veggies, and time manipulation sounds yum
    my inner braai master is already drooling over your top class graphics!
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • Can't wait to play the game that goes with those amazing graphics :)
    Thanked by 2jackshiels Kree8
  • Foods both cooked and raw :)))

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    pieter said:
    Can't wait to play the game that goes with those amazing graphics :)
    Prototype should be out tomorrow or today, depending!
    Thanked by 2Kree8 ErNerDragoon
  • Lots of sweets, too!

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  • Particles looking good!

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    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • edited
    imgur.com/p2Cr2ul

    A nice gif! The forum won't allow me to embed it.
  • Testing the working gameplay to make it fun. Right now you direct Jerry the kebab using bombs while the time slows down. You have to land on the plate to complete each kebab...

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    Thanked by 1Kree8
  • edited
    Customers come in with suggestions for their food. Creative approaches increase points.

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    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • More characters:

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  • I'm impressed with the sheer visual splendor of this! Reminds me a bit of the exceptionally beautiful Unravel. (Though I know you've been working on this style of art for a long time).
  • edited
    I'm impressed with the sheer visual splendor of this! Reminds me a bit of the exceptionally beautiful Unravel. (Though I know you've been working on this style of art for a long time).
    Thanks Evan! It's been an amazing journey learning how to properly handle game art design this past year. Super Regency is benefiting a lot.

    Quick question from you - seeing as you use so many particle systems in Broforce.

    I have an issue where my particle system explosion (with sub emitters for those glowing trails, pictured above) is rendering fine when I test it in the game view, but when I actually run and press play It only renders the trails until about 1.8s in. This makes a cool "after effect", but isn't what I want.

    Did you ever encounter any bugs like this? It's weird that it displays fine in the non-running game view, but then bugs out while playing. Not an essential fix, as the explosion looks OK. Just a shot in the dark.

    EDIT: never mind, found out it's a bug in the way Shuriken handles sub emitters. Changing the max particles on the sub emitter particle object effects ALL emissions. You have to account for the amount of total particles spawned by the parent emitter...
  • A hazard block...

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  • edited
    Build is up!
  • This game is brutal! It would be really interesting to see a video play-through of that top score. Art is wonderful, sound is great, the finish is fantastic, but the game is just too hard for me to pick up in a few minutes. I think this comes from several factors, not being able to 'scout' the field, the secondary move placement being reversed and the really tight time allowance. It just cries quality in all aspects of execution, would be really nice if it was more forgiving though.
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • edited
    critic said:
    This game is brutal! It would be really interesting to see a video play-through of that top score. Art is wonderful, sound is great, the finish is fantastic, but the game is just too hard for me to pick up in a few minutes. I think this comes from several factors, not being able to 'scout' the field, the secondary move placement being reversed and the really tight time allowance. It just cries quality in all aspects of execution, would be really nice if it was more forgiving though.
    Thanks for the comments!

    We want to make it a little easier, but I'm not sure if difficulty tweaks fall under "getting it running and uploading" (which is what Evan said we're allowed to do before 12). Regardless we'll do an update possibly tonight that people can try out.

    Have you tried pulling the bomb meter back further? It allows you to buy time in the air, sending the kebab higher.

    Again thanks for the great words!

    Thanked by 1critic
  • This game is really fun! There's something really natural and addictive about blasting the shishkabob through the air.
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • Larkison said:
    This game is really fun! There's something really natural and addictive about blasting the shishkabob through the air.
    Glad you enjoy it!!
    Thanked by 1Larkison
  • I spot Substance Painter :) Really nice work. Unfortunately we didn't have time for textures in our submission :(
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • Awesome game! Took me awhile to get a hang of it but when I did it was addictive. Only things I would improve is the scoring system (it broke whenever I got a score greater than 0, it just would not submit) and sometimes placing the bombs didn't work. But other than that, the mechanics and art are awesome! Well done!
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • Awesome game! Took me awhile to get a hang of it but when I did it was addictive. Only things I would improve is the scoring system (it broke whenever I got a score greater than 0, it just would not submit) and sometimes placing the bombs didn't work. But other than that, the mechanics and art are awesome! Well done!
    Thanks!

    It probably broke because you played an earlier version. We blocked out the prior ones because there was an infinite scoring bug. Try the latest download, if you like!
  • edited
    I couldn't always save my score... (The submit button sometimes just didn't click and it kept highlighting the name textfield instead).

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    This was a rad little game. Seems like it'd be pretty great on mobile! It was really hard satisfying the customers, but then I guess that is the catering industry.

    Love the visual style!
    Thanked by 1jackshiels
  • edited
    I couldn't always save my score... (The submit button sometimes just didn't click and it kept highlighting the name textfield instead).

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    This was a rad little game. Seems like it'd be pretty great on mobile! It was really hard satisfying the customers, but then I guess that is the catering industry.

    Love the visual style!
    Thanks!

    Did you play the latest build? Because the original one had that bug. We updated it on the day. At least I think we did - it was quite a blur!

    EDIT: yeah it looks like it's still active - thanks for telling us.
  • The amount of content that you got in there is really impressive!

    I know this was done on a tight schedule, so I imagine that you're aware of some of the visual issues, but I thought I'd leave some crit in case you find it useful.

    I was puzzled to see visual elements of so many different art styles, from 3D, to 2D, and within 2D there seemed to be elements with outlines, elements without, elements with coloured outlines, outlines in background elements but not in foreground elements, etc. It makes it look as if the game was made up of art made by many different artists, or by artists who weren't communicating with each other.

    In particular, you usually use outlines around things that are important (e.g. buttons, foreground interactive elements). The thick, black outline around the mountain in the background was particularly jarring to me.

    The explosions felt nice and juicy!

    The food assets have a really strange texture on them that makes them look like they're coloured rocks.

    The layers of green and brown in the ground look really nice! I think they're my favourite thing on the screen. It sort of makes me think of a stage or stop motion set -- and if that's a direction you choose, then you'd probably want to throw out all of the flat, vector-looking elements, and replace them with other more physical, organic materials, like paper, wood or cardboard. The food hanging in the sky might then actually be suspended from strings or something.

    I hope that helps!
  • The amount of content that you got in there is really impressive!

    I know this was done on a tight schedule, so I imagine that you're aware of some of the visual issues, but I thought I'd leave some crit in case you find it useful.

    I was puzzled to see visual elements of so many different art styles, from 3D, to 2D, and within 2D there seemed to be elements with outlines, elements without, elements with coloured outlines, outlines in background elements but not in foreground elements, etc. It makes it look as if the game was made up of art made by many different artists, or by artists who weren't communicating with each other.

    In particular, you usually use outlines around things that are important (e.g. buttons, foreground interactive elements). The thick, black outline around the mountain in the background was particularly jarring to me.

    The explosions felt nice and juicy!

    The food assets have a really strange texture on them that makes them look like they're coloured rocks.

    The layers of green and brown in the ground look really nice! I think they're my favourite thing on the screen. It sort of makes me think of a stage or stop motion set -- and if that's a direction you choose, then you'd probably want to throw out all of the flat, vector-looking elements, and replace them with other more physical, organic materials, like paper, wood or cardboard. The food hanging in the sky might then actually be suspended from strings or something.

    I hope that helps!
    Thanks for the feedback!

    It was a bit of a mad rush, so some things had to be overlooked in the name of time unfortunately.

    I was wondering if you could give feedback for the main menu UI of our flagship title:

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    I'm quite happy with it, but I want to see how others feel about a 2D over 3D look...
  • edited
    To be honest, the 3D work looks pretty fantastic, whereas the 2D/UI looks cheap to me.

    I can see you're trying to be consistent in terms of the medieval theme, but in terms of actual execution I feel the quality difference is pretty huge. I'm going to make some suggestions, but I just want to be clear that I'm not an expert at UI, and although I've done just about everything professionally (including UI), I do think it's one of my weaker skills.

    Your logo doesn't seem to fit your game. When I see your logo, I expect a pixel art or vector sprite game. If your 3D is solid, have you considered doing a logo using 3D? (Consider other medieval-themed games, and maybe check out their logos as a comparison. e.g. The Elder Scrolls, Crusader Kings, Chivalry, etc.) If you imagine your game's logo in a list of other games like those, would yours compare favourably? (I'm personally looking at the Medieval category in Steam, but you'd look at whatever storefront you're aiming for, and compare yourself not to just any random bunch of games, but to the games that are actually doing well. Apparently the majority of indie games don't even make $500, so you don't want to be comparing yourself with the "average".)

    I'm guessing it's a game lobby?

    1. Think of visual hierarchy. If you blur your eyes, can you make out where the important areas of the screen are? What's the player supposed to do at this screen? If her only choices are to Ready or Leave, then these should be more prominent, and perhaps grouped together. It should be easy to tell (because of contrast and shapes) which elements are interactable (buttons) and which aren't. I'm guessing here (I don't know which bits are buttons and which are headings), but it looks to me that Ready and Leave are buttons, whereas the other scroll-like things (Team, PlayerX) are headings. If you can click on them all, then they should all look like buttons. If you can only click on Ready and Leave, then those should, to me, be more prominent (be larger, or have higher contrast) than the others.

    2. Group things to make it easy to read at a glance. (I think that if your logo's in this shot, that it should have more space around it to separate it from the other elements. It's also probably not very important -- if someone's at this screen, they probably already know what game they're playing, right?) Is there a reason Team is between Ready and Leave? (I don't know what this does, but it looks like it actually belongs on the right somehow, so that the buttons are grouped together?)

    3. Consistent visuals/style/theme. It's not necessarily a problem to have a 2D UI over a 3D background. But if your 3D is quite detailed, then imo you can't be going with vector-like 2D graphics. I don't actually know what your game's about and how it plays, so it's a bit hard to make recommendations, but for an indie it's usually less work to go cleaner and more minimalist. (Maybe check out Assassin's Creed, which is a AAA game with AAA polish, but has a minimalist aesthetic, or DotA2 or something, which is more textured, but still clean and easy to read.)

    And in terms of font, while there might be exceptions, I think it's most important that it's easy to read, and then that it fits the theme. I think you've got a few different fonts, at different sizes and different colours going on, and that makes things look more cluttered and confusing that it should be.

    Again, I'd recommend looking at other games -- not to copy them (although it's worth studying other games' lobbies to see how they've laid things out), but to hold your game's assets up next to theirs, and honestly be able to tell yourself that your game's UI is as polished as theirs, and at least equals theirs in both aesthetics and readability/ease of use. I may have totally misjudged the games you're comparing yourself too and picked all of the wrong games, but you pick the right games for what you're aiming for, and try make sure you compare favourably if you want to compete against them.

    I hope that helps.
  • *snip*
    Sorry for the very late reply!

    I'm gonna take this on board. Apologies, I've been so busy lately. Thank you for the valuable input.
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