Don't Panic (Locked Down)

Spaceman Spiffs Space Lockdown Adventure

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💡Inspiration

Elon Musk has promised to put people on Mars by 2030. The journey is expected to take 1 year: a lockdown for a full year in the spaceship. This 1 year lock down in a spaceship reminded me of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and I wondered what would happen if Vogons attacked the Mars spaceship. The theme song of 2001 Space Odyssey: Also Sprach Zarathrutsta started ringing in my mind.

🧐What it does

A space adventure in which the Spaceman Spiff (the character with the red cape, see calvin n hobbes) tries to escape the Vogons and reach safety. Level 3 requires you to control an invisible character. The game is designed like a puzzle, you are given minimal information, you must make your way out as quickly as possible.

🔑Key Features

  • Interesting GUI and storyline
  • Item pickup
  • Puzzle Solving
  • Levels :
    • Level 1 is easy
    • Level 2 is hard with puzzle like difficulty
    • Level 3 requires you to control an invisible spiff (very hard)

🔨How I built it

  • I used UNITY
  • I used the 2D option.
  • Multiple levels were put in place, each with the same basic structure.
  • I also created maps in order to ensure smoother transitions.

🤔Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge was that the day had only 24 hrs, and quite a few of them went to sleep (only about 3 or 4) Slight errors in the code would send me off on a tangent and take many minutes if not an hour or so to correct. Precious hours were wasted doing this. Twice or thrice, I realised that the problem I was facing was due to a minute syntax error in the code. Eg: The Scene transition number was not defined, I had forgotten to place the ";" character after a line of code... After half an hour or so of pondering, in an epiphany, I would realise that I had been staring at the mistake all along. It's true sometimes you see, but you do not observe.

I intially wanted to make an isometric game. I faced a myriad of problems with using the tilemap I had designed. After about 2 to 3 hours of trying to make it work, I had to scrap the idea and instead make a platformer game.

Moreover I had to do all of the work, making music, designing the game, coding it, searching and editing numerous images and sprites…

🔥 Accomplishments that I'm proud of

  • Creating a visually pleasing GUI.
  • Completing a working model of a project in a short time.
  • Laying the groundwork for further enhancements.
  • Making the game all by myself. yes

🧠What I learned

Unity has a tool called debug, which allows you to view the output at each and every step. Whenever I ran into a problem, it almost always helped me out. I learned how to use this tool.

When facing a problem, take a break. Go out for a walk, have a drink of water, the solution will then pop up quicker.

❓What's next for Locked Down

There was only 1 item pickup per level. I plan to increase the number of item pickups, and add more complex and interesting maps.

📖 Notes

  • I have uploaded a demo version (no help page) of the game as a WEB GL in Simmer IO if anyone wants to try
  • The GIThub repo was intially working. It is now not working and has been removed
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