Almost A Post Mortem

Most of the stuff I write here tends to be on the "theory-heavy" side, or to be about game making in general (the rest is bad jokes). This time I have made a game, and want to give you a backstage tour because I am still so very exited that I made my second release.
The game can be found at

http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1455

as a free download, by the way. And now that we've got the spamming sorted out, let's have a look at a caffeine-riddled tale.

Ben Made Me Do It
Chance Of The Dead was made for the MAGS competition- if you don't know about that one, it's a fun little competition where you have to create a game within one month, adhering to rules set by last month's winner. I never entered MAGS before- I am terminally afraid of deadlines, and one month really isn't very much time. But Ben304 set a theme that was hard to resist: "A Second Chance"- make a game about someone getting another go at somthing he failed to do before. To me it instantly read "make a game about a zombie". It's rare that an idea hits so hard that it almost hurts; I instantly had a basic plot and location and mood in mind. I checked my calendar: July the firts. At least I'd HAVE a full month.

How I Prepared For The Caffeine Month
I made a plan. I gave myself one week for prototyping, one week for refining, and one week for testing. That got one problem out of the way very early in the process: I would have a whole week to spare if things didn't work out. It would be awesome to have the game done in the third week, and if not, I'd still have a safety net in the shape of seven days.
I also quite recently had written an article in this very blog detailling my reasons for game-making failure. I saw this game as a nice chance to get rid of some of them, and in several small ways it worked out.

The Story
I wrote three versions of the "story" (well, I CALL it the story), and each one was a lot smaller than its forerunner. Wanna see? Here-

First Draft:
Janet wants to submit a cake to a school competition, but she has no time to make it. Since she works at a diner, she tries to bake it there- during the night shift, but the customers get into her way. Then there is an accident, and the diner burns down. Janet manages to get the people out, but she dies. She is resurrected from the grave to go through that night again. Now knowing what will go wrong, she can chance the events of the night so that she has enough time to make her cake.

That was the original plan, and I found it really intriguing, but to be honest, I saw only one way to make it playable: I'd have to show the whole night going wrong, and then rewind, and handing over control to the player.
To make it short, I really didn't think it'd work. So-

Second Draft:
Janet never won her school’s baking competition because some other school girl cheated her. She rises from the grave one last time to get this done, and breaks into a diner to bake the cake. She’s noticed, though, and all of a sudden she has customers! But even though they want her to serve stuff, she needs most of that anyway (coffee, and a quickly improvised mix for shortcakes), and she even enjoys working the night shift so much that she serves her cake when it is done, to the cheers of the customers. Then she realises that she’s already HAVING the fame she wanted. With a happy sigh she sinks into the ground.

I liked that one much better. It was more focussed, and had that slightly bitterweet ending. Still too much for a month, though- many customers meant a lot of spritework, and I know that I am a slow animator. A dozen or so static characters wouldn't look too good, though. I somehow needed to slim down the plot even more. But I already had a good idea of where the game would take place, and so I started work on my zombie girl and the main location, the "diner" and waited for ideas to crop up. Sometimes you need to wait for the little buggers to knock on your back door.

The last iteration of the story, compared to the initial idea, was really something completely different, and it fell into place when I drew a graveyard for the introduction. I wanted to have Janet pop out of her grave- you need to play some tropes straight when you're doing a zombie game. Then I realised that it would be VERY STUPID to have a zombie drag itself up and instantly going into a monologue about baking a cake. I needed a second character. What would do? In the end I borrowed from an old plot idea I wanted to establish in a game that never got done: Managers of the afterlife. And thus-

Third Iteration:
When we die with unfinished business still in our mind, the Powers That Be try to take care of it. An agent of the "Powers" raises Janet from her grave to allow her to finally submit a cake to a famous competition that she never won. The agent already "prepared a situation", and Janet has one night in a jury member's diner to make her cake. As it happens, she meets two late-night customers there and can't resist serving them. She learns that the diner does not too well, and when she finally has her cake ready, she asks the agent to leave the recipe as a present to the diner's owner
before she returns to her grave.

Fun In The Kitchen: The Puzzles
As it was, the story neatly provided clear "sections", or "obstacles". First Janet would have to find a way into the diner, because it would be logically locked.
Then she'd prepare the kitchen and meet the first customer, who asks her for a coffee, so the next puzzle would be about making a good cuppa. It made sense that Janet would want to improve the quality of the diner's coffee machine because she herself would need coffee for her cake.
The cup being served, another customer would turn up, offering help in exchange for a good sandwich. Again, it made sense that Janet would accept that puzzle: She needed fruit for her cake, but there wasn't any fruit in the kitchen. The trade would be quite attractive to her.

I also wanted to include three puzzles directly linked to the cake: Janet would have to fix yet another machine in order to thaw some frozen cream, she'd have to find a way to get the right amount of cream into her mixture without proper equipment, and finally, just as she'd start to mix everything up, her left arm would fall off, forcing her to perform some improptu surgery on herself. None of these puzzles made it into the initial release, for several reasons. The first was TIME (I had one hell of a week setting up all the story nodes AND Mr. Coffee). The second was my wish to have only logical, relatively simple puzzled in the game that didn't require ANY guesswork, and I felt that all of the cake puzzles were either repetitive, somewhat "shoved-in", or just a tad too tricky. It was also becoming clear that the game was basically a "one room" affair with some extra locations (where story happened, but few things could be done), and I felt uncomfortable cramming yet more puzzles into the already quite crowded kitchen.
Sometimes a cake's just there to be eaten- no need to go all puzzle drooling.

Rusty The Wonder Dog
The little dog in the backyard, inofficially called Rusty, made me realise that even a simple plot with no more than two real puzzles can be fun if you are prepared to polish things up.
I don't know how popular it is, but when I was a kid many people in my town actually had their dog carrying a spare key in a small pouch on their collar. Sheepdogs and these big bulky Mastiff ones. I borrowed the idea because it made a nice first puzzle to distract the dog with a bone and get the key. First Janet was actually required to use her own rib (I had an idea that she'd then not be able to rest in peace, and would remain linked to the diner in some ghost-ish way). And at first the puzzle was totally barebones: The dog was just a static character that never moved from its watching spot at the fence, and Janet just picked up the ribs and fed them to the dog. I spend two days to polish this one up: Custom animations for Janet prying the leftovers from the street with her own rib, then a zombie-ish animation of her gnawing the meat, and finally a simple walkcycle for the dog, plus a "sleeping" version of it. When I saw all of that in motion I understood that even a simple puzzle can be fun to watch. From there on, I tried to shove in as many custom animations as possible.

Mr. Coffee
Yeah, include a coffee maker into the game where three elements can be altered to improve the quality of the brew. Easy, and machines really make good puzzles: I was so happy when Janet could go through the whole Mr. Coffee sequence- it was simple but logical. Then things got complicated.
My first idea was that Janet would know about the Mr. Coffee line because her father used to work for that firm. I dropped that idea in favour of adding a layer to the puzzle- Janet would have to call the service line in order to find out how these things really work. And then (at that time the game was in its beta testing phase) Tabata did her job to the fullest and because of her, Mr. Coffee turning into the most ugly bit of code I ever saw in a room script of mine: an actual state machine with so many checks that it hurts. In several other scenarios, Mr. Coffee would've been enough for me to call it quits. But his code worked, it just wasn't nice to look at, and so I merely shrugged and left it as it was. Tabata is also responsible for the machine to be able to trigger (for almost any scenario) a sensible response from Janet.
Fixing Mr. Coffee is the "main bulk" of the game, and its main source of grin animations and double ententres by Janet. Again I tried to add some details, but mostly Mr. Coffee is classic gameplay.

Making Contact
At the end of Week 2 or so I had a crude beta of a game. That was already more than I could have hoped for. It was short, but it felt complete- I really felt comfortable with most of it. A few things were still missing, but it was clearly goinf to be fully playable really soon. So I did the sensible thing and asked around for testers on the AGS boards, hoping to get one or two volunteers.
And another thing was really buring under my nails: I had no music. I had a placeholder midi file (Fossils, by Camille Saint-Seance) and thought I could just leave it in, and maybe scrounge another tune from somewhere... but since I was already asking for help, I also asked for someone who could do some midi.
This was when some serious magic started.

Enter Mods, And Also The AGS Audio System
I have little knowledge of the more advanced features of AGS's audio system. I know the basics, but in my first release I simply stole some audio from Legend Of Kyrandia and looped it through the whole game. But the next day I got a PM from Mods. He offered his services, and if I remember correctly, I got some tunes from him THE VERY NEXT DAY. Over the next two weeks he made a full soundtrack, ten pieces of original midi that really changed the game for me.
I know I can draw, and I think I am a decent animator. I can script, and I also have a good collection of sound effects. Technically I can do a game all alone.
But seeing someone else reading your summaries, and having a look at that beta, and then making music for that, that's awesome. There's no other word for it, it's awesome. It was no longer a buch of sprites dancing to a ripped midi version. It felt really fresh.
Mods is also responsible for the large scrolling screen seen in the intro- originally I wanted Janet to pop up from her grave with Ted standing next to her, but that was pretty tricky... then I got the "And Then There Was Janet... Again!" tune, and it was easy enough to time it with the music. And what better intro to a zombie game than a hand outstretched in front of a frikkin' gravestone?
So listen to me, game designers, if you can get someone to make original music for your game, never say no. Never.

Now that I had music I also needed to brush up on audio knowledge- it's not much, but COTD does some subtle fading effects, and as far as I know, tit's impossible to wreck the music by skipping though speech. Not bad when you consider that all the music handling in OUAC was automated.

Why The Forums Are Awesome
When you send out a PM to five persons, asking them to test a game, and you get four positive responses just the next day, you know your forum's great. When two of your testers do their job really well even though they are extremely busy, you know your forum's super awesome. And when you find a tester who just keeps on adding ideas and suggestions and who apparently destroyed a mouse by using cups on Mr. Coffee, well, there are superlatives to super awesome.
bic, Tabata, ponch, Dual, you're all the uber awesome. Thanks to you the game has been such a clean relase, well, it's just. Uber.

On a side note, playtesting the game was hell. I dealt with the story by dividing it into "chapters". There were four of them, and each required quite a lot of variables to match certain conditions. For example, I couldn't just start the game, turn on debug and then warp into the kitchen to try out the filter puzzle section- very often I really had to play through all the small steps until "conditions X, Ya, $g, and Dennis" were met. I still like the idea of "story knots", and I think that it would make a gret module/plugin- it's cool to know that in a certain situation, the player will really only be able to be at places X and Y.

On another side-note, a very strange thing happened in one of the house betas when I debugged for "all inventory" while in the kitchen and then looking at Janet's rib: the dog would appear and, still in its sleeping view, would slide around, following Janet. Yeah, I had a follow command there that worked only in the backyard, and I had forgotten that some commands are global.
The first time it happened I was just done with my eleventh cup of coffee, it was close to midnight, and it was quite scary.

A Matter Of Life And Ted
I went through one beta (July 17th), RC1 (19th, I think) and a last RC2 (23 or 24th- at that time my blood was almost 86% coffee, things started to blur). Many, many little tweaks were done in each version, but the thing that changed the most was the end. I love writing ends, and at the same time I find it the hardest part: You want to end with something memorable, and you want to have your players leave with the feeling that everything's solved.

Originally I wanted to leave a certain choice to the player, and that's where the graveyard soil (the only superfluous inventory item) came into play: After having all ingredients for the cake, Janet would make it, and then a button would appear on the GUI that would call Ted. The player would have the chance to ruin the cake by smearing the earth all over it, and that would've nulled the contract with Ted, and Janet would then remain in the land of the living.

I scraped that, and wrote the ending a good deal simpler: Janet would hand over the cake to Ted, who'd tell her that (according to his magical bit of paper) it would win. Janet would then give a brief "Yay", and... roll the credits.

That felt extremely rushed, tough, and after quite a lot of rewrites, I finally found the tone I wanted. I even managed to shove in a quick "kiss the cake goodbye" animation. Like most of Janet's custom animations it is very simple, but just fits.

As a bonus, I did an "after-credits" screen to really cover all lose ends, and to shove in a tiny hint that Janet somehow really isn't quite as dead. It took a lot of time; I think I went to almost half a dozen "final dialogs", but it felt important. Puzzle-wise the game really isn't that interesting, it's standard adventure fare. But I think Janet makes a good character because she is (within the game rules) believable and quite easy to relate to. There really is a story here, and the final recap makes it complete.

The Aftermath
I released Chance Of The Dead within the last week of July, and felt very proud indeed. A memorable line from the MAGS rules reads Yet hopefully, at the end of the month, the accomplishment of finishing a game will be your greatest prize. And yeah, that's true. For me the MAGS rules provided a bit of a pointy stick that made me get my **s up- I daresay that the need to think small lead to some design choices I wouldn't have made under different circumstances. There is a difference between having all the time in the world to bumble around and revisit everything you create for ages, and knowing that you got 30 days and better effing deal with it.

It's also just hilarious to see the internet reacting to you. It was great to read positive comments and good suggestions in the Announcement thread, and it was very strange to find my game - hey, come on, MY GAME!!!- all over the net, at freeware portals, and even described in spanish! (I don't speak that, but the Google translation was... well, I got the gist of it.)

If COTD hadn't been a "MAGS game", it wouldn't have been made. Now that I've seen how nice it is to deal with a smaller setting, I think I've really learned a lot. Small scope doesn't mean inferior game- it just gives you such a lot of opportunities to put detail in. And zombies, well, zombies are always cool.

Easter Eggs And Cameos
Some references crept into the game almost instantly, others were added later, but if you know where to look, there’s a little cameo or reference in almost every room.

- Ted names the MAGS theme and even knows that it is available “only this month”. Think about it- of all characters he’s technically aware that Janet’s night out can only happen within these four weeks!

- Biting the flowers in front of the diner will make Janet quip “A zombie eating plants- what next?” A little nod to Plants vs. Zombies (great game).

- There’s a Once Upon A Crime poster in the back yard, but it isn’t a hotspot. It’s just there, I didn’t want to go overboard.

- In case you wondered: The black outline in the diner’s hall is a statue, and it’s actually my old “Ghost-in-a-sheet” avatar sized up. I just needed a little bit of foreground to cover a tricky spot in the walkbehind areas.

- The kitchen has the (traditional) blue cup in the shelves- the “service line dood” even references the hazards a really big blue cup can cause.

- Asking Pam for the date brings up the “final” date for COTD- the day I prepared for release. Janet even says this’ll be a special day for her, but in context it just means that she’ll never forget the night she got her second chance.

- In the after-credits sequence, where Ted ties up the loose threads, we see the new cook standing behind the counter- it’s Beverly from Daemons In The Attic, just in a new outfit.

Fun Facts
- The room script file for the kitchen is 1187 lines, that's more than OUAC's Klutzenstein (with 3 locations and four puzzles).

- Using the "steam vent" (just using it, not using the pipe on it) triggers yet another double entendre from Janet.

- Janet was originally "Jennifer", and the first sprite had her with her ponytail down and brown hair, and also darker, torn clothes. She also had red eyes initially. "Burdie" is a tiny nod to "The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett, where one of the MacFeegle rides a "wee burdie"- I really liked the sound of the name. Like Beverly's last name it can be read as a hint that she's Irish.

- "It's time to whip cream and pour in some rum" is a thinly veiled apptempt to shove in a Duke one-liner. As it is, Janet could also have shouted "Fights!".

Thanks for reading!