176 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
176 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
# Nijousatsujikenriron (AKA "The Elevator Game")
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**Nijousatsujikenriron** is a murder-mystery dating-sim set in an
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elevator. As Detective Monaghan, you just had the worst, and probably
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last, day of your career. As you enter the elevator, you feel things
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are not going to get better. Can you solve the mystery? Can you find
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yourself? Can you move on?
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Made in cooperation with _[Sketchwhale](http://takunomi.space)_
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and _[Mikko "Mishicu" Aaltio](https://twitter.com/mishicumusic)_
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Download on [itch.io](https://jmaa.itch.io/nijousatsujikenriron).
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## Introduction ##
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Last weekend, 13-15th April 2018, I participated in [Nordic Game
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Jam](https://nordicgamejam.org/), a yearly gamejam set in Copenhagen.
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I did not enjoy the trip at all, but was very satisfied with the
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resulting game.
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Most of this post is a rant about trains, the jam, implementation
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details, etc.
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## Transport Purgatory ##
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I had planned to see [Robert Yang](https://twitter.com/radiatoryang)'s
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presentation on sex in video games, and had planned my train journey to
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Copenhagen with time to spare. When stopped at some random small-town
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station, we're informed that a tree fell on the tracks, and thrown out
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of the train. Together with hundreds of other confused people, I
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waited 3 hours for a [train-replacement
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bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_replacement_bus_service) that
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never came. The tracks were cleared, and trains were running again
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before a bus towards Copenhagen came. Good job [DSB](https://www.dsb.dk/).
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The remaining journey to Copenhagen was spent in a stuffed train,
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where even first-class passengers were standing. After arriving in
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Copenhagen, I still had to walk an hour to get to TAP1, the game jam location.
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## Friday ##
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Similar to in [2016](/website/doki-doki-densha-sekai), my friend
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[Sketchwhale](http://takunomi.space) and I had already talked about
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some game ideas before the jam, and just like last time, we ignored
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the theme completely.
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The idea we settled on was _murder-mystery dating-sim, set in an
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elevator_, which Sketchwhale had called _"This- This is awful- It's not
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even a real mystery"_. We would focus on the dialog between the main
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character, detective _Dave Monaghan_, and the other characters. The joke was
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that the murderer was obvious, but the real game lie in becoming
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friends with the characters. We used a pretty awful custom built 3d engine,
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I'd made earlier in the year (2018).
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The jam started late, somewhere around `21:30`, and so the progress
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after day one was pretty rough, as can be seen above. We had a
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sprite for one character, _Miko_ and some very colorful
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walls. The dialog options on-screen was baked in, and there was no
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interaction beyond rotating between different clones of Miko.
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## Saturday ##
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Since 2017 _Nordic Game Jam_ has been a vegetarian event. I have no
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issue with vegetarian food, I can live fine without meat. What I don't
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care for, is being served [skyr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr)
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natural for breakfast, when a bowl of cornflakes or havregryn would
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have done just fine. Why go for extreme variety, when something so
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normal and cheap is already vegetarian?
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Most of the game was implemented on the second day, Saturday.
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Sketchwhale drew the remaining characters, and wrote the dialog for
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_Miko_ and the dog. I implemented the dialog system, including all of
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the _Miko_ dialog.
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The 3d engine is, as previously asserted, a bit rough. It calculates
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texture coordinates wrong, so the act of looking around will change
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how a texture is draw, when the texture fills a large amount of the
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screen.
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This is obviously incorrect, but I couldn't be bothered
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with fixing it before the jam, and didn't have time under the jam.
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Above is an example of the stretching bug. Compare it with [original
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image](images/sweat-guy.jpg). Notice how large his head is on
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the projected surface, compared to how large it is on the original.
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One way to avoid extreme stretching of the texture, is to split one
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triangle into several. The distortion is limited, as each triangle
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fills less of the screen. Unfortunately the entire engine is such a
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mess, that all my attempts failed with weird warping textures.
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Sketchwhale had drawn a great wall texture, but due to the stretching
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bug, we could not get it to work properly. Instead we made the walls
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randomly colored triangles, which looks alright.
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Sketchwhale knew a musician at the jam, [Mikko "Mishicu"
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Aaltio](https://twitter.com/mishicumusic). Although Mishicu were
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already working with another team, he was convinced to make some music
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for us, based on [that one scene from
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Drive](https://youtu.be/Kq2a7MWbmJU?t=1m28s). Mishicu did a great job,
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and I encourage you to play the game through, if only to listen to the music.
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## Sunday ##
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The third day started with incredible pressure to get the game
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finished. We started work around `10:00`, with a deadline of `13:00`.
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Sketchwhale mainly worked on a bit of promotional material, like a
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video, while I implemented the dog dialog, and implemented an
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introductory scene. A fun change was to shorten the dialog options
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when not selected. This was to accommodate some long dialog options
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pushing other options off of the screen.
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We didn't have time to finish the following, during the jam:
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- The timer mechanic never went anywhere, as we forgot to add an
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ending.
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- The score mechanic was incomplete, due to a bug in the dialog
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system, where some points weren't given correctly.
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- One of the characters has no dialog.
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- The player was supposed to have a gun, and be able to shoot
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characters.
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- A wireframe minimap was supposed to help the player when they
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felt lost.
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## The presentations ##
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After the jam, every group had to present their game, in front of 30 other groups,
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before voting on everybody's favorite. My favorite games from our
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presentation scene was:
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- [Rage Against the Cuisine](https://d-lo.itch.io/rage-against-the-cuisine)
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- [Puppet Improv Theatre](https://saracecilia.itch.io/puppet-improv-theatre)
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- [On-line](https://mrjwolf.itch.io/on-line)
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All three groups were great at presenting, and displayed the charm of
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their games very well.
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I didn't get to see the final presentation, or know who won, as I left
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early. I was incredibly tired, and just wanted to get home.
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## Post-jam ##
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After the jam, I decided to fix some of the bugs and missing features. I
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added an ending, and fixed the score bugs. Furthermore a proper title
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screen was added.
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The introduction sequence was heavily modified, to make it more
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intuitive. The doors were made actual 3d objects, and the light
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flickers in a more realistic manner. A fun change was for each
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character's name to only appear once the player has spoken with them.
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Please do try the game; it is entirely free, and can be
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[downloaded above](#download).
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