Hello! Paweł here! I stand behind some of the art and graphics of Bullet Waste. This is my first post on Stork’Studios blog, but it will not be about our main game.

…that does not mean that you shouldn’t play Bullet Waste of course…

My perspective on jams

Last April we participated in the Ludum Dare game jam. While participating in jams is not something new for Stork’Studios, it is a somewhat unique experience for me. I usually stay away from game jams, as I normally prefer to work on bigger projects. They allow you to bring gameplay and art to the level of detail you desire. (Not like I have all the time in the world to polish every detail in models I make for Bullet Waste anyway…) I just like to make ambitious looking games, okay?!

To be clear it was not my first game jam ever (it’s my third time to be precise), but it was the first time I entered a jam with Stork’Studios team.

Anyway. I decided to join in this time and… I have to say I liked it.

The jam’s theme was Signal. At first I thought it was the worst, but in the end I think it couldn’t have been better.

The game

During the jam we manged to make a first person shooter game called “Lost Signal: Network Warfare”. It is about a special soldier sent to a planet taken over by aliens to restore local infrastructure. Core of the gameplay revolves around weapons, that need to be in range of certain signals in order to function. The game has some elements of tower defense. You are provided with traps, and special signal extenders to place around. I was responsible for half of the 3D art (not surprising).

Let’s talk about it in more detail, shall we?

Gameplay

There are 3 types of signals in game: cyan, magenta and yellow. Throughout the game you will encounter large signal towers that you have to turn on to unlock your weapons.

As a player you have 6 weapons at your disposal:

1. RIFLE: Fast shooting projectile weapon (requires cyan signal)
2. LANDMINES: Deadly trap that explodes when stepped on (requires magenta signal)
3. GRENADE LAUNCHER: Middle range weapon with explosive projectiles (requires yellow signal)
4. ROCKET LAUNCHER: Slow, but powerful weapon, shooting explosive projectiles (requires magenta and yellow signals)
5. KINETIC GUN: Long range weapon, that fires a full magazine of piercing projectiles at once (requires cyan and yellow signals)
6. TURRET: Placable stationary weapon that automatically aims and shoots at enemies (requires cyan and magenta signals)

You can only use the weapons when within reach of the large signal tower(s) of certain color. To make game more strategic and interesting we added placeable signal extenders to the game, as a way to expand your range of operation.

When designing the game we wanted to add some tower defense elements to it, because tower defense is a game where you strategically place things. Hence the landmines and turrets in your arsenal. It is also nice to just mix game genres, you don’t want to play yet another first person shooter, right?

Game is divided into 6 levels, each time the objective is to reach the end gate, but to do so you will have to deal with alien enemies, of which there are 4 types in total:

• Charging Brawler - charges at you and deals damage upon contact
• Sharp Shooter - stationary enemy that shoots projectiles in a straight line
• Grenadier - stationary enemy that shoots grenades upwards, so that they fall on you from above
• Tanky Hulk - a big powerful enemy, very dangerous up close

Some levels are standard first person shooter levels where presence of signals forces you to change your weapons. Others trigger waves of enemies to attack your position, exercising tower defense elements of the game. One level even makes you do some basic parkour.

Graphics

Action of Lost Signal happens in a fully 3D environment with two distinct biomes: alien desert and lost / fallen city. For simplicity levels were designed on a 3D grid.

Weapons at player’s possession have custom animations. I only borrowed hand model and rig from my other project and modified it a bit to better suit it for holding weapons.

All 4 enemies were 3D modeled skinned and animated by Piotr – other 3D artist on the team.

We even have a custom skybox.

I would like to remind you that almost everything was made during a 72 hour game jam. The gameplay, the unique mechanics for each gun and enemy, the 3D environment, ui, 3D modeled weapons, 3D animated enemies. The scope was genuinely insane.

I really like how the final game turned out.

Results

But then the results came out…

…a somewhat humbling experience, given that I have been praising the game so much…

And what do you mean we got only 3.64/5 for theme?! Didn’t it fit?

What Went Wrong

The game did not came out without problems. Main complaint we have received was from players getting lost on the very second level. It features a wall with magenta colored cracks. Player was meant to extend the cyan signal to reach it and then shoot at the wall to destroy it. Many players assumed the wall could only be destroyed with mines, which also have magenta color and require magenta signal to work, which is not available at this stage of the level.

I didn’t think much of it when picking the color for wall cracks. Rest of the team also didn’t think that this would be that big of the deal. We thought that any distinct color would do the job, provided that it was used consistently throughout the game. Turns out we were wrong! But what other colors could we have realistically used in a game that uses colors to such extent that it almost the entire color wheel is in use? We will probably update it to white in a post-jam update, but I don’t know if it will be readable. To me white does not feel interactable enough.

Many players also complained about “losing towers”. It was caused by a bug we had in our game. Sometimes game would place multiple towers in same spot, exactly overlapping, which would subtract more than one item from player’s inventory. You could technically pick the tower back up, but you had to know how the bug worked to do so. We fixed that one during the jam as the rules allowed for bug fixes.

One commenter pointed at game’s difficulty. It is too hard. Factually. Which I have also signaled (pun intended) to our level designer, but the game balance was that one thing we genuinely did not have time to tweak. I only managed to beat the game after the jam (and I had to use a nav mesh related bug to do so) (then I proceeded to speedrun the game in 1 minute and 24 seconds, but that is beside the point). First few levels are nice, but to beat later levels player has to essentially memorize level layout and enemy placement, since there is basically no time to think and even then it is hard.

Our game also does not feature any music or audio whatsoever, which also did not go unnoticed by players. Well… we didn’t have a sound person on a team. I know… it is not an excuse, but…

…there is not but. We kind of forgot.

Final Thoughts

We definitely got our lesson in game design. I learned how to be more efficient in modeling and texturing assets. Overall I like the game that we made, despite maybe lower ratings than I anticipated.