Game Jam Overview + Future Direction

So creating Bouncy Wouncy Spider was an interesting experience, it’s my third jam using Unity and I feel like it went a lot more smoothly than especially my first jam (Block Caver). This blog will explain my goals for the jam, lessons I learned doing the jam, things I wanted to add but wasn’t able to, and things I would like to improve in future.

Goals:

• Create small full polished game with unique mechanics
• Use the animation system in Unity (based on this video)
• Make all art digitally (I usually do inking/drawing on paper first then scan it in)

Lessons for next time:

• Set up before jam: i.e. Start git repository, create Unity project, add splash screen before the game jam start date
• Look in the asset store for free assets that already do what I am trying to do. In this case I could have just used the Easy 2D Lines asset straight away instead of trying to use the LineRenderer first which behaves like a 3D object. That would have saved me half a day.

Things I wanted to add but didn’t have time:

• Trailing line behind spider (partially implemented)
• Angle of spider based on angle of impact (partially implemented)
• Particles spawning when bouncing against walls/objects
• Give score based on the area of the largest hole (the smaller the better), i.e reward an even coverage of the web
• Arrow on drag to show direction of spider
• Randomly spawn branches to use as anchor points instead of the walls to make the gameplay more varied
• Set strength  of jump based on distance pulled back (currently travels at a constant velocity)

Things to add in future:

• All the things above (excluding scoring system)
• Image/animation to show which direction to drag on the introduction screen
• Power ups, e.g. extra jumps, bounciness, ability to attach to wall (should think of more)
• Create mobile version
• Have 8 jumps instead of 10, losing a leg on each jump to make the number 10 feel less arbitrary
• Trajectory indication line
• Visual representation showing the number of flies you have caught at the end
• Integrate anchor points into game world more + explain/show what they are for better

Things I would like to incentivize but haven’t figured out a good way to do yet:

• Less random web building, would be good if the webs with the highest points look like actual spiders webs
• Each attempt should require different decisions and a different way of playing

My plans for the game going forward are to polish it up a bit more and see if I can add more variety to the gameplay. After that I plan to release it on mobile and post it to some other web game sites. I’ll most likely try and get this done in the next 2 - 3 months, although I have another project (LoFi Room) I'm currently working on.