Why does Caterpillar exist? - A postmortem

The short and simple answer to this article’s title is: during Ludum Dare 49 I said I would come back for Ludum Dare 50, and I did not want to look like a liar (instead I look a bit unstable to people who played Caterpillar).

The longer answer is: originally the game was to revolve around managing a caterpillar searching for food. Over time the caterpillar’s hunger bar would empty, and if allowed to completely deplete the caterpillar would starve. As the caterpillar ate food their size would increase, once reaching a certain size the caterpillar would turn into a chrysalis ending the game. The longer the player stayed a caterpillar the higher their score. To get a higher score the player would avoid eating for as long as possible, and this would be complicated by needing to look for food while outmaneuvering various hazards. I also planned on saving time by taking photos of my garden for the game’s art.

Sadly, it was raining during the jam which prevented me from taking quality photos of my garden, this also caused me to not have time to flush out the gameplay. To met the deadline I decide to go in the interactive story direction, and to fix the photo quality I edited them to be weird and surreal.

With the title answered let us move on to the much more interesting question of what I learned while making Caterpillar.

A wild listicle appears!

Alright guys, let’s count down the eleven things I learned during Ludum Dare 50.

Side note: the points are roughly laid out in the order that I learned them.

1. Set reminders for important events, preferably a week or two before they start.

By not doing this I had three days to prepare for Ludum Dare 50 instead of the week I wanted.

2. Do not fixate on themes.

I had several favorites out of the possible themes for Ludum Dare 50, and “Delay the inevitable” was not one of them. I ended up making a game more suited to the themes I wanted rather than the actual theme. For a way to help prevent this see point 4.

3. Be proactive before and during the jam.

A few days before Ludum Dare 50 started I decided to use photos of my garden for the game’s art, but if I had quickly tested this idea out I would of realized that this was not an easy task. Consistently getting the correct angles and distance would require a lot of time (which I did not have), and taking good photos of moving insects is difficult. Five minutes of testing would have shown all this.

4. Try out multiple ideas.

My concern with trying multiple ideas was that I would get stuck never committing, but I believe that the benefits outweigh the risks. For example, Caterpillar was something I came up with before the theme was announced, and I believe if I had taken the time to come up with an idea that had the winning theme in mind the game would have turned out better.

5. Pivot.

In one way I did this, and in another way I did not. When I saw that my garden photos were not going to work I edited them to a new style, but replacing the photos with drawings probably would of worked better.

6. A game that looks boring is worse than a game that looks uniquely ugly.

While Caterpillar’s art may look weird it is better than the disjointed normal looking original photos, or as a friend put it, “No one notices my poor photoshopping skills because I make weird-interesting things.”

7. Avoid unnecessary yak shaving¹.

Because I should of used a version control system during Ludum Dare 49 I spent the first day of Ludum Dare 50 learning the basics of and setting up Fossil². I ended up never using it due to Ludum Dare’s short deadline preventing me from working more cautiously.

8. Make your game discoverable.

I was reluctant to highlight interactive NPCs; because, I did not want to ruin the player’s immersion, but when playtesting I realized the player had no way of knowing what to do. This meant the easiest way for the player to finish the game was mashing the interact button on everything. The convenience of highlighting NPCs far outweighed any loss in immersion.

9. Having sound effects greatly improves your game.

As the following video shows even simple sound effects can significantly improve game feel.

10. Deadlines help keep you on track.

Something that I have struggled with is getting stuck endlessly reading documentation, guides, and tutorials which prevents me from making actual progress. Having a deadline forces me to learn enough to be productive without getting bogged down.

11. The fastest way to improve the quality and development speed of your games is practice.

Practice makes perfect, and game jams make for great practice. Just remember that practice means plenty of missed deadlines and less than stellar games.