The Basis for an Idea

Idea for the Jam

While discussing this game jam with a friend, we were discussing the word list provided as the "theme."  The rules for the jam are to pick 3-5 of the random words and create a game based on that using only assets obtained from others.  I initially mentioned disaster and village and my friend suggested a game where you save people that are stuck on rooftops. Basically, he just wanted rain and lots of it!  (Inside joke for a Discord server we both belong to.)

Testing Assets

The first night of me working on the jam itself was spent mostly fighting Unity and the various assets I've bought over the years.  First off, I have multiple competing assets that do the same thing; for example, I have 4 different tools that create weather, plus an additional dedicated asset for just fog.  I also initially tried to use the Universal Render Pipeline in Unity, but too many assets had errors that I did not want to fight with.  Instead, I went back to the built-in renderer and had better luck.  Two assets I tried but did not appear to be as easy to work with were Gaia and Dungeon Architect.  Gaia is supposed to have a weather system included in the asset, but I could not get it to look right.  For Dungeon Architect, I thought about using that to make a large randomly generated village.  However, in one of the house asset packs I decided to use, I found a demo scene that was just big enough for a game jam and also helped fit the theme as I am literally using the demo as my asset flip game.

Initial Level Version

I finally was able to use the house demo scene, add in a weather system with rain and fog, and then add a boat and water.  I tried a couple types of boats, but decided to go with one that would be most likely in a community.  Growing up in what was officially a "village," I've seen these kinds of boats (https://skfb.ly/RBBH) my whole life.  I then went to the GameDevHQ Filebase tool, something I have a subscription to, in order to find something to use as a searchlight.  Found a pretty decent example to use that is really meant to be an outdoor light on a house, but for this game jam, it looks perfect (even if it is too dark and you don't really see it in game - see image above).

Adjusting the Look of the Level

After sharing my work with my friend, I took some of his feedback and adjusted the lighting and weather to make the game fit the idea of what we both were kind of thinking of.  Another thing he mentioned was how it would be funny to see a vehicle floating by; going to Filebase, I grabbed a truck model and voila!  I also added the Aura 2 asset, which is integrated with the Weather Maker asset I'm using.  This tool allowed me to create extra fog on the water.

To Do

My next steps in this project are to follow a YouTube tutorial to make a boat controller (thus also using something created by another person) and finding characters to "rescue."  One thing I need to decide is whether the rules prohibiting making things yourself also applies to people making things for you.  I'm thinking of asking friends to record dialogue to be used for the people being rescued (things like "Help" or "I'm falling") but I am not sure if that would violate the rules.  Technically I am not making them, but if I ask for them?  If I do go that route, I think what I will ask is "I'm making a game where the player has to rescue folks trapped on their roof during a flood; please create a vocal line that you would use in that situation if you were trapped on a roof."  I think that would fit the intention of the rules.  I also need to incorporate a radar asset in to help guide the player to the people to be rescued.  I have an asset already, but need to look into how to wire that up into my game.