GET LUCKY
GMTK Game Jam 2022 [Roll of the Die]
48 Hours | July 2022
DESCRIPTION
Get Lucky is a graphic novel dating sim where the player attempts to persuade Lady Luck to let you pay for dinner. I was one of nine developers and acted as one of the two programmers. This Game Jam was only 48 hours.
Working with one other programmer, we each developed half the systems for the game and worked together at the end and tied the two halves together.
My primary accomplishment was the dialogue system. The structure was easy to implement without sacrificing functionality. In addition, I streamlined the dialogue pipeline that saved valuable time for the writing.
Out of 6,147 entries, Get Lucky was ranked #407 overall and #163 in presentation!
RESPONSIBILITIES
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Processed dice rolls.
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Developed and integrated dialogue system.
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Integrated various UI elements.
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Organized dialogue data.
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Assisted in main game flow integration.
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Polished game.
Engineer Skills Learned
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Rapidly creating data structures.
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Identifying and implementing core systems early.
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Identifying pipeline issues and creating tools to assist.
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Rapidly implementing systems.
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Maximizing limited time.
Design Skills Learned
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Designing a system described only in concept.
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Rapidly iterating systems.
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Polishing existing systems.
Engineering
Dialogue State Diagram
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Once the game loop was decided, I got to work and drew diagrams for the game.
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Having these diagrams while implementing the system ensured that they'd worked the first time and maximized our development time.
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This state diagram mapped out what goals were needed from the system and how player input would be handled.
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This also doubled for planning out how the UI flow would work.
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Dialogue Manager
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Having a well thought out manager and data structure for the dialogue was essential to completing the game in time.
- DialogueOption contained the writing and reaction images options for Lady Luck.
- DialoguePool held DialogueOptions in groups and would retrieve options when requested. It auto repopulated as well!
- DialogueManager was the main driver for the system, deciding which pools to use and when.
Auto Dialogue Parsing
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With such little time, I wanted to ensure our writers had the time they needed to write and proof read without worrying about engine implementation.
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I created a tool that would take in dialogue that automatically broke the text into 'lines' which fit inside the dialogue box.
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This allowed out writers to quickly move their writing into one spot without worry of the dialogue being too long for the system to handle. We estimated that it saved 8 hours of testing and bug fixing in a 48 hour project.
- As it was compartmentalized, it was easy to add functionality such as changing text color based on the character speaking.
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Lady Luck Poses
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My favorite part of polish was changing Lady Luck's pose based on the player's dialogue choices.
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This felt to tie the entire game loop together as it made the interactions with the character more genuine.
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This was tied to the dialogue system so we could offer relevant reactions based on her dialogue.
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My favorite reaction pose was where she ducks under the table and lifts up her fox that acts as her scarf who and holds a gun.
Reaction Images
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Although we were confident in our writing, we wanted to add another way to show which 'tone' the player selected when they chose dialogue.
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As such, I was asked to tie in the reaction images into the dialogue system. It was easy to implement and added another form of player communication to it.
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When reading comments for the game jam, multiple players understood how the system worked, and we believe this addition contributed a lot to that understanding.
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Design
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Stats Allocation
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I worked to make the starting stats allocation screen more intuitive for players to use.
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I wanted to make sure the player knew when they could continue and make sure they didn't get confused by the options available.
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To do this, I added and changed the states of the buttons based on the surrounding stats. The buttons that modified a stat only activated when they could be changed appropriately and the final confirm only unlocked once all stats were spent.
Buttons Polish
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One concern brought up by the team was communicating that these two elements were buttons to continue.
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To help, I suggested and added the glowing spinning sparkles to them!
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The added brightness and movement helped draw the players attention and helped communicate it was intractable.
- In addition, it felt to add some charm to the UI as a whole.
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Background Waiter
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I was concerned that the game would feel stale during certain moments. There was smoke added to candles but I felt more could be done.
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To add some extra movement and charm, I recommended we add a silhouette of a waiter that passed the background every few seconds.
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After receiving the sprite from an artist, I used the Unity animator to animate going in both directions at randomized intervals.
