Pixels Out of Space is a video game loosely based on ‘Color out of Space’ (both the movie and the short novel) and Annihilation. It was designed and developed for the GBJAM 8 during two weeks. Almost all the work was done during the weekends.

The limitations of GBJAM are these: we can only use 4 colours (and the transparent colour) at a given time, and we must use the Game Boy control scheme (directional pad, two action buttons, start and select) and resolution (160px x 144px).

What went right?

Good concept

The concept of the game was good, as we tried to use the limitations of the jam in our favour. The core concept was to change the colour palette in-game to convey the ‘colour out of space’ of the movie and book. We had more than one colour, but the movie and book had only one.

We also expressed the change that colour made in people and the environment through the gameplay too: 

• The blue colour changed the gravity.
• The pink colour reversed the player’s controls.
• The red colour made some flowers bloom (and shoot rays). 

We didn’t reinvent the wheel, but we think we had an original concept.

Game Boy aesthetic

This jam was the first one we tried to go for a Game Boy aesthetics. There are some development tools to create a real Game Boy game (such as GBDK), but we prefered to use Unity, as it’s easier and we already knew it. Despite this, I think the Game Boy aesthetic was quite authentic, as we used Unity’s Pixel perfect camera and we used a 4 colour palette religiously.

Gameplay

The core mechanic of the game (shooting and reloading the weapon) added tension to the gameplay. That was intended, as we wanted the player to shoot, then hide in a safe place in order to reload the weapon. The character is very vulnerable while they don't have any bullets left, as jumping over enemies is very dangerous (and sometimes impossible). The player needs to not miss any shoot, as every bullet is important.

What went wrong?

Planning

This was the first game jam I did as a group. So, planning issues are not unusual. Basically, I planned for three different colours (pink, red and blue), a dozen levels (almost two for each colour), a couple of enemies and a final boss. At the end, we ditched the boss, as there was no time to design and develop mechanics for it, one of the enemies was ditched too and the pink colour was added at the very end of the development.

After submitting the game, some players complained about the difficulty of the game, especially the second level, which had pink colours mechanics (reversed controls). We decided to make a quick change during the jam ratings, and ditch the pink colour too. We needed more time in order to balance the difficulty of that colour.

Horror aesthetic

At the beginning, we wanted to have some horror aesthetic, similar to Metroid II: Return of Samus. We have some kind of horror aesthetic, but we wanted to focus more on it. Storytelling, something essential to the horror aesthetic, was basically nonexistent, as it’s only at the beginning and the end of the game.

Creating some storytelling and aesthetic, plus adding some non trivial mechanics was too much for a two weeks game jam.

‘Marketing’

Another key thing that went wrong was ‘marketing’. The jam had more than 250 submissions, and it’s really difficult to stand out. We should have saved more time to create the itch.io page, so we could have a nicer theme and thumbnail. We got only 18 ratings, too few when the most rated game had 69 ratings.

Summary

Our submission got the 60th position on the jam. It wasn’t that bad regarding that there were 262 submissions, but we could have done much better. The keys to get better ratings are two: have a polished game and good ‘marketing’. It’s better to have less but more polished content and a theme that stands out, than a lot of non balanced content. However, we could fix most of the issues with a post-jam version, and we’re proud of the result.