Crate Job Simulator making-of(ish)

Post by @colonel-mangue (website)

I thought I’d write a little sort of behind the scenes article about our game to attract some attention and because these game jams are always, in my mind, interesting experiences worth sharing. I’m sure for many usual participants it’s nothing new, as we all go through similar processes, but I figured it’s fun to share and, it might be of interest at least for some first time participants.

About our game:

Crate Job Simulator focuses on the work day of a forklift robot operating in a futuristic warehouse. The player receives a growing number of crates over the 3 minutes a level lasts and has to ship them out according to demand. Obviously, as the theme suggests, the aim is for the player to get overwhelmed by the number of crates coming in and they will have to manage their stress and keep the warehouse organized in order to score the most.

The team:

6 people have worked on the game in total but most of it was done by programmers Quentin and Loïc with Nicolas doing the level design. All three of them worked together in Belgium at Quentin’s place.

I worked out of Paris on the graphics of the game but was only available on the evenings of Sunday and Monday.

Fabien joined the developers in Belgium on Monday evenin to gigve us that last little push we needed in programming and Vincent got in touch with us from Montreal and helped me with some polishing on the graphics.to

Most of the team was actually in the same room while Vincent or myself kept in touch via hangout. When I had questions or wanted to show what I was working on I would share my screen to the others and just leave the sharing on afterwards for a good part of the project.

Since most of the team was located in western europe, our time zone and the new deadline meant the we had to finish the game on Monday at midnight. The three hour offset was kind of unusual for us compared to previous editions of Ludum Dare.

It meant we didn’t have to lose too much sleep before the announcement of the theme and had a somewhat normal night before starting work on our entry. It also meant to me that, since I was working on Monday, I kind of felt that I had three hours less to work on the graphics in my already short available time.

The theme:

Running out of space. We primarily focused our thoughts on the concept of small spaces. After moving some ideas around, the idea of having to transport crates became the preferred one all around.

The mechanic of the game was relatively straightforward which allowed us to get everything in place in order to have a playable version of the game quite quickly. Sooner than usually compared to earlier LDs. This also gave us time to refine the gameplay even further in order to be as much on point as possible.

In that process, one of the decisions we finally took was to drop a part of the game where you were actually aboard a spaceship. You had to manage the ship and phases of organizing and offloading had to take in account the different locations you traveled to.

In the end we felt that it complicated the game too much. Not only for the players but even for us in terms of balancing and having a game that is immediately fun to play.

Gameplay:

At first we were going towards a physics based grabbing and dropping system but it quickly turned out to be buggy. Instead we decided to use a slightly less realistic but more robust snapping action like in everyone’s favourite cooking challenge.

Overcooked is an obvious reference. The clear top-down view, cameracentric controls and simple grab and drop mechanic were an ideal fit for a game like ours. The dash function became an obvious addition as well.

Graphics:

I didn’t have much time for the graphics (even for a game jam) so I turned towards MagicaVoxel for its fun interaction and quick (and cute) results. I took inspiration from other endearing robots like Wall-E or classic sci-fi builder Startopia’s Scuzzer, among other things, for their cartoonishly industrial look and cobbled together this sort of cute hovering robot.

This design direction actually meant to solve a whole bunch of animation challenges at once by removing any moving parts. Furthermore the two forklift spokes on the front are there to give a clear indication of which way is forward and what your task in the game is.

Textures were kept to a minimum for time’s and clarity’s sake and doing them in pixel art not only fit the voxels of the main character but meant that the players would be unconsciously decoding all of the details in their heads. Had I had more time, I would have liked to add some prettier particle effects around the player character as, right now, I don’t think it’s actually that clear that the robot is hovering above ground. Indeed we felt that having the character on tracks or wheels might induce the players to expect tank controls.

I also regret not having had time to add some more polished lighting to the levels. At least the current basic setup allows for a clear picture although somewhat lacking in dramatic contrast. Some red alert style atmosphere changes when the music speeds up would have been nice.

Level Design:

We were really happy to have a specialized level designer this time around. Nicolas spent most of his time on this topic and allowed us to feature five (FIVE !!) awesome levels in our submission. That’s a huge step up from our previous experiences and it definitely increased our overall production value.

Final stretch:

In the final stretch Fabien joined Quentin and the others in Belgium and set up our leaderboards. We feel like it’s always nice to have the possibility of leaving your mark and comparing your score to your friends’. It’s the kind of details that can add that extra value to the overall gameplay experience and encourage players to come back and give it another go.

Final thoughts:

We’ve taken part in a fare share of game jam’s over the past years, now, and every time is still an opportunity to learn a little more. Finding interesting ideas quickly and managing production on such a short term are some of the categories we’re making progress in. However, one thing I think we’re getting better at is trying to keep the best habits.

We try to get decent sleep, eat as well as we can and, more generally speaking, we try to take the time to reflect on where we’re heading. As for myself, I didn’t even neglect my family this time around and it was totally worth it. Good teamwork can also from good communication. If you treat this like a miniature version of a “real” production, you also get a much higher return in experience.

It’s always tempting to go all-in into the development process thinking it’s a sprint, not a marathon. You can always catch up on sleep and all the rest while it’s done, right? But like many longtime participants, I’m sure, we soon realized that by doing so we were actually missing the point.

All in all, our main takeaway is that we had a ton of fun. Now we’re having another ton of fun playing our game and showing it to our friends and family and that, to us, is the real prize.

For an overeview of our previous games you can head over to Quentin’s website and check out our previous entries.