We had decided on what kind of game we wanted to create, but not really how the player would connect to that world. I began to work on possible story-lines for the player to be dodging thing, or interacting with the environment.

Some of the first ideas were to have the game set in a gym and you would be playing dodge-ball. I sketched out some ideas for what the gym might look like, but really wasn’t feeling inspired to set the game there. Some other sketches were made of what it would be like if we set the game on the international space station. (I had been playing a lot of Kerbal Space Program at the time.) I really liked the idea of space, you could be an astronaut loading a capsule for some adventure to another planet, or something. Along the lines of making Loading Dock Simulator 2256.

The last idea I had was based off of a conversation I had about sequels to large movie franchises. The gist of the conversation was that I was happy to get the chance to experience the worlds that I had such fondness for. With that I mind I really wanted to spend more time in Hobbiton, from the Lord of the Rings. I tried to find some reason for you to be in Hobbiton, and remembered that in the first Hobbit film there are dwarfs throwing plates and dinnerware around.

After a few ideas were on paper, I presented them to my other teammates. The Hobbit theme was an instant hit, and we decided to pursue it. I started by laying out a list of assets we would need for the final game, and then prioritized them based on what we needed to get into the game, to get it playable.

It was a short list of only a few things that we needed:

• Levels for the player to be in
• Things to be tossed at the player
• Dwarf character to do the throwing
• Extras for the environment

The level was the first piece of work that needed to be completed, so we could begin testing in it. I created a simple modular plan for the level. It was contained a turn section, a wall section, and 2 meetings for the tunnels in the hobbit hole. There were a few types of walls and joins, but overall it was really simple. I created the different modules so that we could change the level later, but that didn’t end up working out.

The rest of my time was spent on creating the plates, and dwarf. Nearing the end of the second day, I had some extra time to build the additional props, but because of other issues with the programming, we never got them added.

After the 48 hours, I got my sleep schedule readjusted, and started to rework some of the assets. I’ll be writing some more updates those revisions, but for now GGJ is over.

Read Part 1: Here