Making of Heavily Protected | Mini Devlog
Hey, I'm Citybuilder! So, the last time I entered a game jam was all the way back in 2019, so I was super excited when I saw that Noa was going to be hosting the 3rd Blackthornprod Game Jam.
PLAY GAME: https://citybuilderstudios.itch.io/heavily-protected
Since the last time I joined a game jam, I feel like I’ve improved quite a lot as a game dev: launching my first game on steam itch and learning much more about game design, coding, and art.
Day 1
I really struggled coming up with a game idea. But eventually, I had the idea of a game where you defend a hot-air balloon using an array of turrets but the more weapons you have the heavier your balloon becomes.
The more weapons you have, the less lift you gain.
The first aspect I implemented was the Balloon physics. I used the buoyancy effector in Unity to make the balloon rise and fall based on its mass and wrote a script to change its weight.
I then began trying to come up with an art style. I was inspired by Alto's Adventure and tried to replicate its clean, geometric aesthetic. But I couldn’t make anything I was that proud of and so ended up forcing myself to try something new since I had already wasted most of Day 1.
Alto Adventure
Heavily Protected
Day 2
Day 2 was much more productive since I ended up getting most of the core gameplay in place. I got some airplane enemies working, which turned out looking pretty cool before making a turret which could aim and shoot them.
Day 3/4
Day 3 I finished off the core gameplay adding an enemy spawner and making art for the different enemies
Day 4 was all about Enemy Design. I created a Helicopter that shot missiles, a much faster (Stealth style) aircraft, and a Bomber who’s slow but can deal a ton of damage. I wanted the enemies to complement the turret design well having each have its own strengths and weaknesses against one another, which hopefully would help make the game more strategic.
Day 5
I started off the day reattempting the landscape art from Day.
I then began implementing the different turrets: a missile launcher, a cannon, and a laser beam.
Day 6
By now the game was playable, so Day 6 was all about Polish! I added some moving clouds to the background using the Unity Particle System. Then, inspired by Luftuasers, I added screen shake and some explosion effects, which I was super pleased with and really made the game come alive. Finally, I added a crash effect, which turned out awesome, and a game over screen
Day 7 (Final Day!)
Day 7 luckily most of the game was already done by now, which was good because SFX took forever. I experimented in the morning using my voice to make some firing sounds but the results were... pretty pathetic sounding. So, in the afternoon I resorted to my SFX saviour BFXR. Again, though I couldn’t seem to create anything good at first, but I kept iterating and eventually came to something that was quite juicy and cool. (You'll have to play the game to listen to them :D)
Postmortem
So overall this week really showed me that game jams are as fun as I remember them! As well as that, it showed me the importance of a small scope, since by finishing the core concept of Heavily Protected in the first 4 days, I managed to add much more content and polish than I otherwise would have.
One thing I would do differently would be to plan out in advance what I wanted each enemy to achieve for the overall design and making balance and tactical play into one of my key focuses. Sometimes it can feel like you can get away with using the same turret setup over and over again or that the enemy waves are unfair and hard to counter.
Huge thanks to Noa for hosting the jam, I had an absolute blast making this game.
Thanks for reading!
- Citybuilder Studios
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