This is going to be an extremely long post so please keep that in mind. This post will be pertaining to how I made “Glitch in the System”; the development process, the release, what went right and wrong, I even go into detail about art and music in their own section. I also want to highlight some of the game design elements that I utilized in the game in the hopes to teach or inspire others. You can jump from section to section or read the PowerPoint presentation that will be embedded in the post at the end to give a briefer version of it. Before I start I would like to point you towards another postmortem if you are interested in reading: THREES – A tiny puzzle that grows on you. A great read just be prepared for a very, VERY long one.
Intro
In case you are wondering what exactly “Glitch in the System” is you can see a video demonstrating the gameplay here:
In short it is a 2D twin stick shooter where you hold off waves of enemies, trying to achieve a highscore in the process. You can play the game here. It is heavily inspired by Geometry Wars by Bizarre Creations.
If you have been following Tribe Games for a while, you would know that I actually have another game in development. So why did I even consider creating this game in the first place?
I made this game for a fair at my college that I study at. It was to help promote a club that I am involved in, University of Minnesota Duluth Media Arts Club, I initially had 2 days to develop a prototype and show it off to the students attending the fair. It wasn’t ideal but it was a good test to see if I could make something “presentable” within such a short amount of time.
Game Development
Early Prototype
When I started with the prototype I had two central ideas in mind. The first was to make a fun prototype. The second was to make something that is flashy enough to grab the attention of people when they walk past. The initial stages was extremely basic. You are a circle and you are shooting squares. It was simple and a clear goal.
If you looked at Geometry Wars, you can see that the camera is pulled further back so you are able to see the entire stage. I decided against this. I wanted a much more personal and tension filled game. Highlighted in the first prototype is the fact that the enemies shoot at you, but don’t hurt you when you touch them. This is a huge difference between many games in general. I did this because the camera is so close to you and your vision is obscured a bit, I felt like there would be cheap deaths if you got hurt by touching the enemies.
A tip for those who are also making games: make sure to save your old prototypes and versions of the game. I got nostalgic when I published the game and I wish I would have saved the really early versions of the game.
Student Fair Demo
After working on it for a while I eventually had a working demo of the game to present in the fair. I was really proud of this accomplishment. Not only was it done but, in my opinion, it was pretty fun. So I went to the fair and showed it off.
It was well received. A handful of people tried the game and they enjoyed themselves. The prototype was a success. I achieved what I set out to do, make a fun game and a “flashy” one that caught people’s attention.
Polishing Stage
After the fair, I decided, “I think I am going to polish it up a bit and release it on the internet”. That statement is fine, no problems there. “I think it should take about 2 weeks, max”… WHOA, slow down… this introduces the biggest problem that I had within the development of “Glitch in the System”. I underestimated a lot of things. This took WAY longer to polish. The entire development process was just about 2 months. Underestimating led to many of the failures that I had on this project, I will get into that later.
I have never previously made a “Release Ready” game before. I have made a lot of smaller games where I was the only one who played them. I have also made quite a few unfinished games before (Emerald). So I wanted to finish this to prove to myself that I could do it.
I got to work on polishing the game, and like I said before, it took longer than expected. I updated so much though and within that time period. One thing that I wanted to make sure “Glitch in the System” did was pay attention to the little things. Like having the screen fade to black when it switches between the gameplay and the main menu. Having colors fade gradually between each other like when you get hit. Adding that extra bounce to the main menu animation. All of the small things really help add a professional feel to the game.
Also during this stage I did a lot of play testing, something that I didn’t get a chance to do with the initial prototype. This really helped and I highly recommend that you let others play your game often to get more feedback.
The last week before I released the game was essential. It could have taken an additional month if it was not for that week. During that week I had on average 12 hour work days, the longest time I spent working on the game in a day was 19 hours. All of this to make sure that the game ran smoothly and there were no huge bugs on the day of release.
Full Release
Then it was finally time for release! There were a lot of small things that I had to take care of but in the end it was a fairly smooth release. I researched how others released their games. I think the key to the smooth release due to planning ahead and being on standby for support.
Luckily there were very few bugs that arose during this time, just small things that I could fix extremely quickly.
The game was extremely well received; there were very few negative criticisms. That isn’t necessarily a good thing though… Sometimes you need to hear the bad with the good. After the initial day (maybe a bit after that) the buzz surrounding it really dropped off.
How did it go?
The Good
- The overall polish to the game is extremely high quality. The game was extremely focused, it isn’t trying to be something that it isn’t.
- I am extremely happy with the art style. It is one of the first things that people notice when they first play the game.
- The music also was well done. This is the second thing that people noticed was this. It really meshed with the game well, helping to excite the player.
- The game was fun. I am really proud that my game was fun, this was one of the main reasons why I did this in the first place.
- I proved I could do this. This was the other main reason I did this. I made all of the art, code, music, and I even promoted it. I feel enormously accomplished with the game.
The Bad
- The game lacks features. Because the game is so focused there aren’t many features in the game. There is only one stage, two enemies, three power ups… the list goes on.
- I missed other platforms. I could have distributed the game on various websites like Kongregate. This would have helped boost awareness of the game.
- Radio silence throughout development. This is probably my biggest blunder. Throughout the 2 months I made a total of 3 posts on the website… I was better on Twitter but it still wasn’t good. This was largely due to the fact that I underestimated the amount of work that needed to be done…
- A lot of “Ghost” likes. People liked it more than people actually played it. While I appreciate the gesture, I do want you to play the game as well. This doesn’t only go for the game, the commemorative art video also got that treatment as well.
- I targeted a platform that I didn’t have easy access to. There was a problem with the Mac version, I didn’t have access to a Mac so there was little I could do to replicate the issue.
What I learned
- Games take time. Well, I already knew that, but this experience cemented that fact. No matter the size it will still take a large amount of time.
- Underestimating is bad… I underestimated the time it would take, the platforms to publish on, and the distribution portals range. Make sure to be realistic in your goals.
- How to release a game. This is a great skill to have and is something I can now say I have done. I can actually point to some work that I have done.
Art
The art itself is a very simple in design. The style is “Calculated Sketchy”, the outlines are messy, but they are still deliberately placed. The hand painted nature of the art helps differentiate itself from other games.
The player’s uniform color scheme in particular is really contrasting to the rest of the world’s color. I also wanted to make sure that the enemies’ designs are easy to distinguish from each other.
I am extremely proud of the main menu art. This took me a long time to make (I was just learning how to use a tablet the best). The animation is what really sells it.
The amount of in-game art assets is surprisingly low. I thought there would be a lot more than what is in the final game, but it makes sense because it is such a small game.
The commemorative art was a very simple composition, but still makes sense within the context of the game. This took me FOREVER to make, with 8 official attempts and at least 14 other attempts. There was various problems throughout the making of the video:
…and the program crashed as I was trying to save… FIGURES.
— Tribe Games (@TribeGames) April 24, 2014
The final time-lapse video took 3 hours and 14 minutes. I think it went really well.
Successes
- The art style interesting
- It came across as very polished
- It is very consistent across all forms of media (game, website, other promotional items)
Failures
- It took an incredibly large chunk of development time. I took 1 ½ weeks just on the main menu alone.
- Although it is easy to distinguish between the enemies, they don’t look like they are related in any way.
Music
Main Theme (Glitch in the System)
The main theme is a high energy, progressive house track. I made a lot of deliberate choices when making this track. The stutters within the track help reflect the edgy art style of the game. I also made sure that the beat was always present. Nowhere in the song do the “Four to the Floor” pattern disappear. Even when the main synth starts to “glitch” out. This helps drive the song and focuses the player on the action. The main synth is very percussive this helps focus the player as well. The “B section” of the song contains high contrasting sounds to snap the listener back in focus. On a side note, the song title came before the name of the game.
Main Menu (System Reboot)
The main menu song is ethereal and abstract. I did this to distance the main menu from the gameplay. I wanted to make sure that the main menu felt like a place of refuge, as if it were a safe area within the game. The structure of the song starts of very soft but slowly builds up to a more “intense” feeling. This was to show the intense nature of the game, in the calmest way possible.
Commemorative Art (Antivirus)
A semi-muted version of “Glitch in the System”. It has a more even distribution of energy. I was very particular in how I crafted this track. This is meant to bridge the gap between “Glitch in the System” and “System Reboot”. The structure of the song is loosely based off of the main theme. The drops are a lot tamer and it keeps in line with the tone of the main menu theme. One of the central parts to the song is the “Arpeggio Synth”. It sometimes repeats over and over, not always following the chord progression. This was meant to be the “Glitch” in a musical sense. The names of all of the songs so far are based off of a musical narrative. “Glitch in the System” is the introduction of the “problem”, “Antivirus” is fighting off the glitch, “System Reboot” is restarting the system to get rid of the glitch.
Successes
- They are really polished and well produced
- The main theme is pretty catchy
- They fit were they were showcased (like the main menu song fits in the main menu)
- The musical narrative that was created. I am really proud of the consistency and the melodic narrative is fairly interesting
Failures
- Not sure is the song narrative came across the best
- There are only 2 tracks in the actual game
Conclusion
Well, there you have it the story, design, and reflection of “Glitch in the System”. Overall, I am proud of what I accomplished and hope that I can bring what I learned in future projects. An extremely long post but that is due to the fact that there are many aspects to cover. If you just scrolled down to see the PowerPoint presentation here it is:
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I am not even going to ask my usual “Two Questions” question, Thanks for reading.