Thoughts about this game's development
(this is a very ramble-y post written back when i first published the game, even though i only made this visible now. you're probably not interested in reading all this!)
Uncontrollable Fall is a short project made for the 2020 GMTK game jam. The theme was "Out of Control". The game was intended to have an arcade-y feel, where the player tries to reach the highest score which, in this case, is obtained by saving passengers on the airplane (and yourself for a bonus point).
All of the art, code, music and SFX were made in less than a day, the same day I got the idea for the game. This was partly intentional; I was hoping to finish the main mechanics first. Any other progress I could cram in would be a bonus. However, I went a biiiiiiiiiiiiiit overboard. This means that what you're playing, seeing and hearing is the result of a few hours of work. Also this is my first time making music for one of my games! Thank you, Bosca Ceoil, for existing <3
The game is, at it's core, a game about rescuing some dudes from dying in an airplane crash. It is undeniably a pretty gruesome topic. I briefly considered having human characters in the game, but something didn't sit right with me. It didn't feel right to have people dying in an airplane crash in my game. I subverted that by having robot characters, which I think was a good way around it.
After I uploaded the first build (now lost to time...), a kind person on Twitter pointed out some perceived flaws with the game. Most of them were valid, and I fixed them. However one idea, letting the player save themselves, wasn't as good in hindsight.
This idea, to me, feels like it compromises the game's... vision? It isn't that big of a deal really, but I feel it changes the game's mood in a noticeable way. In the first build, you couldn't save yourself, and had to wait the timer out, which was tense and felt, well, uncontrollable. In hindsight, I shouldn't have implemented that. I'd like to also mention that this was the only idea based on "wouldn't it be cool if..." rather than an actual fix or improvement, which I think shows.
In conclusion, Uncontrollable Crash is the result of rushing through the creative process, and letting crunch time start too early. I am very happy with this game, and believe it is a fun experience, but this isn't the ideal way to make a game, even for a game jam. Ideally, you'd space all the tasks required to make the game (brainstorming, programming, etc.) across the time you have. With this game, it was all crammed in a few hours and while the end result's good, it may have benefited from some more development time. Also I was going to add screenshake and I forgot WHOOPS