Gameplay Over Graphics. Fullstop.

Coming from an arts background I've noticed my tendency to focus on the graphics and end 'visual experience' more than the gameplay. In my head it's easy to think of games like exciting anime trailers or action sequences in a film and get lost in them. Worst yet, is I want that 'image in my head' so bad that I'll often build the game around having those visuals opposed to worrying about the thing that actually matters: Gameplay.

This was the first project where I really focused on gameplay first. I used the default godot.png as my player and the first .png I could find for ocean/sun as placeholders. I had all the graphics I needed and now I could begin to code. I knew generally what I wanted in terms of a game and coded out the navigation, death zones, point zones, and landing area. I then began to actually play the game and see if it was fun: It wasn't.

I think this is why getting bogged by graphics or sound or 'game juice' is a bit pointless at the start. If you don't have a hook, no matter how pretty, you know deep down inside it's a deadening experience. I wanted to get a bit of a formula of something that 'worked' like a normal semi-addictive web game. Something that I didn't uninstall right away, or get tired of and say "yeah yeah, I get it..." 

I'm still figuring out how to make these moments for players and I can only say it's a rather fun exploratory process. For this game I tweaked values and played the game over and over. I wanted that random 'flappy' feeling to kick in hard and fast at a certain point, which meant exploring exponential curves of difficulty/randomness. It's around this time, lurking deep in the back of my subconscious, that the theme of the myth started to form in my head: How do I actually incentivize a feeling of hubris?

Endless point grabbing until you died was working, but it didn't seem to quite capture what I wanted. There are moments in games (Ikaruga and Enter the Gungeon come to mind) where you can make a decision to 'do one more thing' and the odd thing about those moments is that it feels great when the thing works and it also feels great if it doesn't work. It's a weird gambling high and I wanted to have the player experience it. If the player could play it safe, end 'the run', do what your parents told you to do, it would open up a new space - a space where you could tell your parents to go $@!# themselves!

There is a ton more I want to change/fix, but overall I'm happy with how this one turned out. Thanks to @tmyeomans for telling me about the jam, @mysterysteve for checking in on my progress, and the insanely talented Kevin Buchanan for providing his award-winning voice (a whole other post on that in the future).

Thanks for reading.