1977 – Bottle-cap Legends – GJ+23

This is the first part of the story of “1997 – Bottle-cap legends”. It was meant to be published on October 24, but life got on the way. You can play the current version at https://slash.itch.io/1977-bottlecap-legends

This one came out of nowhere, I was fresh back from SOFA 2023 and with lots of work and stuff going on, and yet…

GameJam+ is an interesting idea; a 48h jam followed up with a mentoring and potential incubation process.

I cautiously waited for the theme to be revealed and then… well after a tiny bit of tinkering on my head I knew I had to participate, I had to transform a traditional street game from Colombia into its virtual incarnation.

But I knew in advance I was not going to have time to code it during its weekend. I also knew from prior experience that having good visuals is a MUST to be noticed in this kind of jams. So I set to build a team… but instead of following the official means to do it via the discord with strangers, I did it the slashie way, invoking friends and comrades from the past (or at least people I worked with).

Saturday, October 21

7:28 AM – Gecko asks me if I plan to participate on the GJ+, I share with him my crazy idea. He says he’s familiar with the traditional game. I ask him if he wants to join my team with some ambience street sound from the 70s, but my offering is met with only silence.

10:06 AM – I pitched the idea to Cesar Gutierrez, an artist with whom I had very recently worked for the new cover art for NovaMundi, and Laura Rubio with whom I had already participated earlier this year in the 7DRL Challenge (a well as a bunch of work for NovaMundi including the cutscenes for the intro that are yet to be published)

Cesar said he could only start at 6PM that day due to personal issues, but that he was on board to draw the map of the track.

10:27 AM – I pitched the idea to old coding friend Camilo Ramirez via WhatsApp – I briefed him what the actual development tasks I thought would be needed: A Unity2D sandbox, overhead view, an image in the background, drag to pan the camera, drag over objects to launch them in a direction minigolf style, click objects to grab and relocate them. No rules enforced.

Camilo said he was going to be AFK for the entire day, but that it looked doable to be done on Sunday.

10:48 AM – I start writing down my ideas into a document so that I can more easily share specs and pitch to other team members. The document includes a project overview, technical specs, visual references and the themes of the jam we are aiming for.

2:13 PM – Laura Rubio came back to me, mentioning she would be too busy during the weekend with study so sadly had to say no.

3:38 PM – The discord group for the team is created, Cesar and Camilo are in, but I also surprise-invited QuietGecko, just in case he could be interested.

3:52 PM – I continue looking for someone who could do the critical art piece, the cover art to represent the project and make it stand. I check the “looking for team” sheet on the official GJ+ discord and found a person that sounds perfect for the job, Nicolle Herrera. Sadly she didn’t respond to my DMs.

5:37 PM – I let Stoltverd (Slashware’s narrative designer and QA) know that there’s a gamejam going on during the weekend, in case he wants to join.

6:14 PM – Cesar starts checking the document with the visual references, some questions are answered in discord regarding visual style and specs.

7:49 PM – Cesar comes back with an initial idea for the map, which already looks great.

7:56 PM – I share the initial map with my father, the thematical expert for this jam. He then reveals to me something super important that I had overlooked so far: the game was popular because of “La Vuelta a Colombia”, a nation-wide road-cycling event. I see a great opportunity to improve the game thematically, to make it more interesting but also allowing us to submit to the educational category of the jam. I start investigating about the event.

8:17 PM – I send feedback to Cesar, regarding adding chalk drawings as adornments to the map, including another classic street game, “rayuela”

8:33 PM – After organizing my thoughts I finally let the team know about the entire cycling thing, which will require additional maps than we initially thought, that’s mostly the impact because gameplay stays the same.

9:07 PM – Father sends a picture of him during his childhood, back when he played this game in the streets. I interview him about these times, the friends he played with, etc. All this info would be very valuable to construct the backstory of the scenario in the game.

9:43 PM – I finish scribbling an idea for two routes of the Vuelta a Colombia 1977, Stage 1 (From Popayán to Cali) and Stage 15 (Caldas to Medellín then Anserma).

10:46 PM – Cesar sends me the first version of the new map, including both routes, it looks awesome with just some typos caused by my horrible handwritting,

Sunday, October 22

8:22 AM – I ping Camilo and Gecko to confirm if they are in. I also let Cesar know we also need graphics for the actual bottle-caps that will slide in the map, this includes sending some references.

8:48 AM – Stoltverd joins the discord group, he was in a roleplaying session on Saturday. He can only work on it during the night because of family Sunday.

9:10 AM – Cesar sends the maps with the typos fixed.

9:17 AM – Since I was unable to get someone on board to create the cover art, I start planning on doing it myself with the available assets

9:28 AM – QuietGecko finally responds, he said he is in but can only work in the afternoon.

9:52 AM – Kram logs into the group – He’s not feeling 100% today, but he still thinks he can do it with the remnants of his power because he is too powerful.

1:52 PM – Kram is on development mode, there’s a back and forth about the specs

3:56 PM – I finally give up and ask Cesar if he would be interested to make the cover art in addition to the main game art, he’s hesitant at first because of the tight deadline, but finally says he can do it!

4:47 PM – Kram shares the first WIP gameplay video! I gave him some feedback about the values which are quickly addressed.

5:02 PM – I ask Kram to add a scenario selection flow, given that we now have two maps and we can exploit such a flow to describe an inform and build a stronger narrative.

6:14 PM – Cesar sends the first sketch for the cover art

7:48 PM – Cesar finishes coloring the character

8:22 PM – I come up with rough ideas for both scenarios, one is to take place in 1977 with my father playing with his friends, and another one in 1994 with myself playing the game after discovering it in an ancient tome on my school’s library.

I actually recall this game from a school event, a “Feria de la antioqueñidad” which is a super local thing where people from the paisa region in Colombia celebrates being paisa. I don’t recall playing the game but I really liked the concept and, now that I think about it while I write this, I *think* I even imagined a board-game version of it.

It’s also worth mentioning that, years later in the Second Age of Slashware, I designed and funded the development of another “Vuelta a Colombia” educational game, made in conjunction with “Bombillo Amarillo”. Another project that didn’t really go anywhere.

8:35 PM – My trackball is dying, it’s mis-clicking as double click which is proving to be an issue to test the game and work. Even so, in this first gameplay tests I detect we need to change the UI to have separate Grab and Flick modes, because the single initial mode that was planned often made it hard for me to do the action I wanted.

I’m not sure if it was due to the faulty mouse, but in any case we decided to go ahead with the idea of separate modes.

8:49 PM – I create a section for “Texts” in the project’s document, including my raw ideas for the scenarios and the instructions for the players and ask Stoltverd to check them out.

8:55 PM – Cesar comes back with an almost finished version of the cover art, missing only the bottle-cap element.

9:19 PM – Cesar sends the finished version of the cover art

9:22 PM – Further gameplay tests prompt me to ask Kram to make additional changes in the mouse interactions, instead of a two steps sequence to click to grab the objects and click again to drop them, we should just drag them around since it no longer makes sense now that we have two modes.

9:26 PM – I came up with a name for the game: 1977: Bottlecap Legends

9:28 PM – A first WEBGL test deployment is made available for the team! decided to do it before having to rush when the deadline came, everything seems to work fine. I also test deploying on itch.io in a test page, and it works fine after toying around with the compression settings.

9:32 PM – Gecko sounds a first version of the music and sound effects, I ask kram to integrate it as well. Kram is running out of energy already.

9:45 PM – I start messing around with the UI, improving the title screen, scenario selection, and adding a HUD for the main game.

10:43 PM – Kram is no longer operational for the day. He is a hero.

10:55 PM – Cesar sends the logo for the game, Gecko sets up the project to do audio things.

11:11 PM – Finish translating scenarios to English

11:17 PM – I request my father a picture of myself around 1994, so that I can improve that screen a little bit.

11:32 PM – Rushing to submit the project form including info for all the team members.

11:39 PM – Father sends me a picture of myself. I run to use GIMP to make it look like an old photo, and quickly add it to the scenario selection scene.

11:47 PM – Rushing to add the bottlecap sprite replacing the plain circle. I cannot find the sprite anywhere

11:54 PM – Code freeze declared, I start making the final build.

11:57 PM – Unity is still building the WebGL build. It’s of course taking longer than normal.

11:59 PM – Submission is complete!

Monday, October 23

12:15 AM – I complain that I was unable to add the “markers” to differentiate the bottlecaps. I was finally able to attempt a full gameplay run, and I detect some bugs which I think were exacerbated by my faulty trackball. Panning speed also seems too high, and the bottle caps are too small which is a problem especially when I tried the game on mobile.

But other than that, the entry has been a great success.

3:36 PM – The GJ+ requires a pitch video to be sent along with the game, within 48 hours after submitting the game. Stoltverd works a bit in defining ideas for it, including some possible ideas for improvement.

10:48 PM – Further discussion via discord for potential improvements; the team thinks having a 3D representation, as well as making the main game mode enforce the rules of the game, are the top priorities. I have some other things in mind as well:

• Add more circuits out of the box reflecting the geography and cities of Colombia
• Add a career mode simulating the life of a kid in the 70s in Colombia.
• Allow players to draw and share their own circuits (via Steam workshop or similar).
• Add an optional mode with enforced rules and scoreboards (local and online)
• Add an online multiplayer option.
• Allow customization of bottlecaps
• Add tracks with obstacles, slopes, off-road terrain

November 28 note: Development of the game continued as part of the “Creando tu propia historia” jam. I’ll post soon about what happened there! 🙂