[Here is a video/audio version of this post for those interested]

Hello, Nicholas here, Programmer for the game Ritual.

Now that the GMTK Game Jam 2020 is over, we are dropping what amounts to a "bugless" build of the game. The version uploaded for the game jam was riddled with bugs—one that made making it through the second tier impossible. Now you can actually make it through all three tiers, unlock all the demon abilities, and perform the ritual that'll exorcise you of the demon. We also stopped the controls from sliding (tip: use GetAxisRaw not GetAxis), made the spikes less punishing, and added a flashing effect to indicate when enemies are damaged. Feel free to play it—it's out now!

For the rest of this post, I wanted to take a look at Ritual: first, how the game turned out (i.e. the bugs, the feedback, our rankings, my thoughts, etc.), and then (probably the more exciting part of this post) I brainstorm where Ritual could go from here.

How Ritual Turned Out

A Summary of the Comments

As of writing this, the results for the game jam have not dropped, though the rating/voting is over. Looking at our place in the “Most Rated” category, Ritual is the 552nd most rated game, or in the 89th percentile. This of course speaks nothing to what our actual ratings in the end were. More likely to predict anything would be the comments the game received.

First off, the jam-build was buggy, so the primary mention in the comments were those due to the bugs/time. This includes: 

• Slippery movement
• A softlock part-way through tier 2
• Lack of audio
• Lack of feedback on enemies being hit
• Some overwhelmingness when seeing the controls list everything at once (This was not supposed to be the first things players see—they in fact unlock these abilities slowly, as one commenter suggested)
• Spike hitboxes were much too big

A lot of these were major issues commenters had with the game, sometimes being the reason a commenter couldn’t enjoy playing it. I wish we had had the time to catch these things ourselves and fix them during the game jam, but that’s just the way development rolled, and I believe these issues are fixed in our new “bugless” version. :)

Second, the art was fantastic. Over HALF of the 25 comments complimented the presentation in this game. The artists, Alex Choate and PairOfDox, deserve the credit for this, as they blew it out of the water with quality and quantity. They made all and any assets I asked for during the jam.

Third, the controls were cool, overwhelming, or both. The player’s abilities appear to have been fun to use, though a number of commenters mention it being overwhelming. However, it’s impossible to know where the players found the controls overwhelming, and thence if the game is any better with this newest build. 

As stated before, the jam-build showed the players the whole of the controls when they first booted up the game. It lists every ability you unlock, and I’m sure a number of those overwhelmed thought they had control over every single one of these abilities, instead of the default three: absorb (absorbs demon souls to heal), swipe (basic attack), and shield (a... shield). But how many players would still be overwhelmed by just those three? If not, then the problem is solved! If not, hopefully the fact that the controls now give a description of each of these abilities helps, but we’ll have to wait and see how players react.

Last of all, possession. 4 comments explicitly mentioned the game’s main mechanic. 2 were positive, 1 was negative, and one appeared neutral: “Taking away control from the player in the demon context is cool, although a little jarring. But it certainly fits the theme!” 

Additionally, a large portion of the comments complimented the game’s “concept.” Assuming they meant the possession, being the game’s introduction is explicitly focused on it, we did a good job.

My personal stance on the jam build:

The bugs were bad. Sometimes they were enjoyment-killers. I hope in this “bugless” build they’re gone, and the players are no longer overwhelmed by the controls. If we did it right, based on the feedback, Ritual should be much more fun. :)

The Future Possibilities

I like Ritual under the context of being the product of a 48-hour Game Jam. The art is stylish, the mechanics are novel, and I think it's fun to get all the way to the end. I feel like it was an accomplishment. However, I think it's undeniable that Ritual has room to grow. Even the most positive praise from a friend ended stating "with a good story and maybe bosses it could be a nice 5 buck game."

So, in what ways could Ritual be grown, given more time and work?

Procedural Generation of Rooms

The initial plan was to create a number of hand-crafted interiors for the different tiers of the dungeons, then procedurally generate rooms that populated themselves by pulling from the interiors we made. In the finished version, the rooms' interiors are randomized from a hand-crafted batch did happen, but there wasn't time to create a room generator.

Procedural generation of both the rooms and their interiors could add to the game's replayability. The hard part would be figuring out the rules of our game layout to ensure it's fun. Take, for example, the map our team's designer wanted for Ritual once he learnt procedural generation would not be possible:

Tiers were supposed to have a different number of rooms and differences in how they were connected (e.g. tier 1, in blue, was supposed to have sprawling paths that would lead to dead ends). Additionally, in tiers 2 and 3, instead of the players always coming upon all the items (like they do in the current game), the power-up players currently get mid-way through a tier would've been put in a room they wouldn't have necessarily come upon. It would have been an incentive for the player to explore more. These traits are things that, assuming we decide it's the correct direction to go, would have to be incorporated into the procedural generation.

As more things are touched on, know that it would also need to be incorporated into the rules we make to control the procedural generation.

An Extra, Final Tier

The last room of the game is a different aesthetic from the game's tries. Instead of the brown 1, dark 2, and red 3, the last room is purple. Perhaps purple could be the backdrop of a final "gauntlet" tier, one with no new enemies or power-ups—just purely fighting through the last, most difficult rooms of the game. I imagine beating the game would feel so much more satisfying that way. 

Out of anything, I think this would be the most "for sure" addition out of anything in this list, but if the tier 3 were to be massive, it could be rejected in place of increasing sprinkles of purple in red, tier 3 rooms as you near the end.

Ritual Pieces

Pieces/ingredients/gems required to perform the exorcism in the final room. Would have to be explored for and found.

Bosses

Bosses! Enemies with big health bars at the top of the screen with rooms dedicated to housing them. Maybe you’d have to kill it with power-ups you got leading up to that fight. Maybe they’d drop power ups. Maybe the demon that possessed you is the final boss.

Pillars

Another means of losing the game. What if some of the rooms had 2–4 pillars in them? The possessed version of your character could run into a pillar and destroy it, and if all the pillars in the room were destroyed, the ceiling would collapse, and you’d die. Pillars could be randomly scattered about, chosen specifically for rooms that you may revisit, or reserved for boss rooms.

A Story / In-Game Info

More text in-game may have helped players learn the game faster, like absorbing demon souls to regain health/mana. It also could have added to creating lore for the enemies and power-ups that the dev team understood but were unable to explicitly communicate. Hopefully this tutorial/teaching and lore would be intertwined to make all the text helpful and engaging to read. 

We could also provide world building, character development, or a basic player-motivation. Maybe there’s a story to tell here.

Corruption

Corruption was supposed to play a major part in Ritual. The value decreases slowly if it’s above zero, but increases with the use of demonic abilities and the absorption of demon souls. The higher the corruption value, the more likely demonic things (e.g. possession, floor decay, enemy waves spawning, etc.) were to occur. 

This value would mean a re-balancing of most of the game. Perhaps the demonic abilities would no longer cost mana because the corruption increase was so bad. Perhaps certain demonic things would decrease the corruption once it happened. Perhaps higher corruption makes the player more powerful in order to mix in some reward with the risk. Perhaps corruption never decreases, or slowly increases. There is a lot to unpack if corruption was considered.

More Stuff

More demonic abilities. More wizard spells. More enemies. More tiers. More hazards. You get the idea.

Hand Crafting the Game

What if, instead of total procedural generation, we hand-crafted parts of the game? What if Ritual had planned events, dialogue, rooms, or barricades that required a set power-up to get past it? Here’s an example:

The player enters a line of rooms now adorned with torches that light up the room. After two or three rooms with all the torches lit, one room only has the torches on the side of the room the player entered from lit; the torches on the other side aren’t, and it fades to pitch black. The next room has no torches, and is pitch-black and empty. The next room is a dead end: torches light the side of the room opposite the player’s entrance. The player grabs a power-up, or key, or whatever is necessary to progress, and suddenly the unlit torches in the room light up. The player re-enters the once pitch-black room. The torches are alight, and a boss stands in the middle of the room.

I feel something like that would be fantastic to have in our game. Ritual could feel more epic like Zelda, Metroid, or Minoria. Then again, something so hand-crafted may call for a lot more narrative writing, world building, cut scenes, art, and mechanics. I find such a possibility exciting, but I understand that:

1. Procedurally-generated dungeon crawlers are appreciated as they are.
2. Replayability is important. AND
3. That's a lot of work that requires a lot out of other team members—not just me.

I can't claim I know the best direction to take our game.

Conclusion

So that was a lot. A lot of possibilities, a lot of balancing, and a lot of working things from the ground up. And still, there’s the question of “are you going to keep working on this game?”

I don’t know. I would like to see this game grow, but I think it would mean sitting down, putting down a lot in design docs (and I’m not a designer), planning, play testing, and having some kind of production management. I’d need a team, or at least some direction for where Ritual should go.

For that reason, I would love to hear people’s thoughts. Thoughts on the current build, thoughts on the possibilities we listed. If you think we should turn this into a full fledged game, say so. If you have any idea about how to move forward on this, say so. I’m all ears. Comment below.

Thanks for reading.