Really Big Backpack

A little over a week ago, a few friends and I decided it’d be a good idea to join a game jam to speed run learning Godot.

We had all done a few tutorials, but never completed a game or anything like that. So, a lot to learn.

The theme was “Overload.” I’d say we spent a cool 15 minutes coming up with our take. I think for a game jam, this is probably fine. Around day 3 you start to discover the plot holes. You know, once you’re committed and it’s too late. But, fuck it. Who cares?

The idea is you’re a little person with a really big backpack. The really big part is important, because “Overload.” The backpack starts small, but as you collect parts from the robots you kill, the bag starts to fill up and get really heavy. So heavy that it breaks the whole level, leaving you in a free fall on to the next.

Good enough for me. Theme? CHECK.

The gameplay was initially inspired by our mutual love for Vampire Survivors-like games, a.k.a. Bullet Heavens. We added the traditional WASD movement, a weapon that shoots automatically, and waves of enemies that just keep coming at you.

The (confusing) twist we added was that the parts dropped by the robots were:

  • your health (like Sonic)
  • your weight / level progression (to OVERLOAD the level)
  • your money (to spend on upgrades)

This was all represented at the top of the screen in what looks to be something like an XP bar from Vampire Survivors.

Was this the best idea? Probably not in retrospect, but we did think it would offer a lot of potentially interesting tradeoffs when passing a level. Do you spend some of your health on that new expensive item, in hopes that you easily make up for the cost from all the extra damage? Can you even beat the next level at all without it? Could you just skip this upgrade round and go on to more easily beat the next and upgrade big time after that?

I think mostly, though, people were confused about what was going on. That could definitely be due to our inability to visualize that for them in the UI.

Overall, though, we ended with a playable game. You have your start screen, followed by a gameplay loop that involves killing waves of enemies, upgrading, and killing some more. All that is tied together with an end screen, some stats about your run, and a way to get going again.

I really didn’t think we’d get that far. I learned so much more diving into the deep end than I would have fiddling with tutorials and documentation for a week instead.

My takeaway? If you’re learning something new, dive into the deep end.

You can play the game here: Really Big Backpack.