Day 3, this is it!

This is the final day, this is the time to rush D:

Good news is that we had most of the parts done, we just had to compose a game. Easy. Right?

Game loop

My brother took care of the main game loop—he knows his stuff, so no problem there. We introduced a tutorial, which led to maybe more text than jam testers are likely to read. The main issue was making the game fun, and we may have missed the mark here. The game could use more interaction, just like we could have used a little more time! :D

Performance

One of the goals of the game was to show a lot of creatures in screen (Build to scale). So the performance was key here, and the first iterations were not great. Good news is that I learnt a bit how to use the profiler from Unity. We made nice improvements and we were able to show a nice amount of little things on screen at once!.

Music

One of the most relevant parts that was missing was the music, and audio in general. The main idea for the music was doing something procedural based on what is happening in the game. For example, 3 voices, one for each civilization, and they grow depending on how much they are grown. Sounds easy. We had to simplify, of course:

• Each civ has one note (A, B, C)
• Civ grows => Quarter note (A…)
• Civ grows a lot => Eight note (A…A)
• Civ decreases => Half note with lower pitch (AAAA)

The problem with this is that if the simulation is not fun, then the music is terrible (or inexistent in some cases ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Result

You can play the final version here: GMTK 2024 or on itch.io. This video demonstrates the main game loop: civilizations rise and fall to a melancholic melody 🎵.