We Won The Big Mode Game Jam!

Holy cow, yesterday we got 1st place in the Big Mode 2023 Game Jam! 

All 4 of us are completely shocked, humbled, and grateful for this whole experience. We joined the jam on a whim, and we never expected anyone to pay attention to our silly snowboarding game, but the outpouring of love & support has been insane, and it has lit a fire in us. So we want to give a huge THANK YOU to all the people who played Red Snow! Especially to those who left comments, both positive and constructive, we are honored just to be a part of this awesome community. We hope that you all had as much fun playing RED SNOW as we had making it!

I wanted to take this opportunity to dive into the story of our 2 1/2 week development timeline for Red Snow, hopefully, as a way to inspire & connect with other game devs. And stay tuned for future updates to the game, including performance and stability patches, bug fixes, and more!

Shout out to my team, Dolphin Studio

And before we get into it, don't forget to check out the work of our extremely talented team - notably my brother, @LyerionClash's awesome multiplayer VR sword fighting game, Lyerion Clash, which you can follow on his twitter (yes, my brother and I worked on Red Snow together, so you could say it's a family-oriented game). And our extremely talented artist @basematerial, whose incredible body of work can also be peeped at his twitter. Another critical part of Red Snow's success is the absolute banger of a theme song, composed by our good friend TKinthepocket, so don't forget to check out his twitch for more music & game streams from him! You can also find me on twitter at @CharlieBratches, where I occasionally post wacky gifs of the various game projects I'm involved in. But back to Red Snow!

Our Development Saga

First off, I want to reiterate how much fun we had making this. It sounds corny, but the game was genuinely made with love, and I believe that was a big part of the game's success. I am lucky enough that I got to work on this game with my brother, as well as our good friends, who all shared the creative vision of the game. On day 1, we were all on the same page about what Red Snow was going to be, and the result is pretty damn close to that original vision. If I had to give some game dev advice (not that I'm qualified to), I would say to find people that you have fun collaborating with, because the product will be so much better for it.

 I dug up these old discord conversations from the first day of the jam, where we tossed dozens of ideas around. "Violent snowboarding" was the one that stuck in our heads, and we hit the ground running the same day. We knew early on that we wanted a main character snowboarding while fighting bad guys with a sword, and we wanted some kind of gore or dismemberment system. And of course, for a game called Red Snow, we would have to deliver on that title by painting the slopes red as enemies get slain.

So day 1, I started writing the code for the game's character controller, while LyerionClash (my brother) started on the game's gore system, and basematerial got started on designing the game's main character. The first day of development was a bit of a miss for me, as I struggled to put together a control scheme that felt good, opting for a rigidbody (physics-based) character controller as opposed to something more arcadey. I put together a prototype on the first day, but it was slidey, drifty, bouncy, and did not feel fun at all. So probably the best decision I made in the jam was to throw it all out and start fresh on day 2. Another piece of unwarranted advice, find what's fun about your game early on. Don't spend too getting something playable together, and don't get too attached to a particular prototype. Be prepared to throw out your work if it's not working for you. Luckily, by the third day, I found my groove and was beginning to get something that felt like a snowboarding game (albeit a janky, buggy one that was built by a highly caffeinated and sleepless person).

Our first attempt at snowboarding mechanics  (on the left) was physics-based, and highly prone to buggy behavior. The second attempt (on the right) was a bit more arcadey and felt much better to play.

So by day three, we were beginning to have something that vaguely resembled a gory snowboarding game, but with depressingly checker-boarded programmer art. That's when basematerial came in to save the day, with killer assets that absolutely nailed the aesthetic we were going for. During the voting period, something very fun that we noticed about Red Snow's jam comments is that people were always comparing the game to an indeterminate era of games. Different comments would compare the game to different eras of old-school consoles, and we would get comments like "the n64 style graphics look amazing", " Love the low poly PSX style models", and "I loved the look of the gamecube landscape".  To us, this was a sign that our artist had nailed it, as we intentionally were going for a vague, indeterminate bygone era of console action games, ranging from the mid 90s to the early 2000s. 

A few days in, we had decided to model our character after the corny action stars of the 80s and 90s, and we wanted the game to take on the tone of so-bad-they're-good action movies like Red Dawn and Invasion U.S.A. Those old movies would often star a hyper-Americanized protagonist single-handedly taking on an army of soviet invaders, which reflected a broader cultural anxiety at the time, but in a hilariously unbelievable fantasy. That's basically how basematerial came up with John Clod, our American hero turned winter sports enthusiast, sporting a katana he bought at the mall. Naturally, our enemies became the stock "red menace" bad guys that stars like Chuck Norris would often beat up in those old films.

After the premise was established, the assets just kept coming in, and basematerial worked tirelessly creating characters, textures, level assets, props, and promotional art for the game. Seriously, the level of quality stuff he pumped out in two weeks was astounding, and we are so happy with the life that he was able to breathe into the world of Red Snow. By the second week of development, our janky programmer-art-riddled snowboarding game suddenly became real, and it actually looked like something that could've been released on a console in the early aughts. Red Snow was finally starting to shape up! But it wasn't done yet, and after the core snowboarding gameplay was fleshed out, we realized we would need something with a bit more oomph to impress players.

Red Snow's myriad of props, textures, characters, and other set dressings produced by our amazing artist, basematerial

At this point in development, our interpretation of the jam's mode theme had been established: the player would spend half the game in snowboard mode and the other half in chairlift mode. Play-test feedback was positive, and the play-testers found the chairlift mode funny, but we felt like we weren't doing enough with the jam's theme. At that point, we had about a week left in the jam, and I made a game-time decision: I was gonna add a shit-load of stupid new modes to the game. We may not have had the cleverest interpretation of the theme, but we were going to brute-force it by adding tons of ridiculous new gameplay modes that transform the character's snowboard into one of many other forms of winter sports. So I got to work ASAP, and I somehow threw together Snowmobile Mode, Ski Mode, Luge Mode, Snowshoe Mode, Saucer Mode, And Figure-Skater Mode all in a single, intense day of development. Programmers out there will know that sometimes, you just get into a weird groove that you need to chase into the night. And that was certainly the case here. The game's additional winter sports modes were also an interesting exercise in code reuse and code abstraction - as they all reuse the same character controller I designed for the snowboard mode, but made generic and reusable, with tweaks to speed, turning radius, kill radius, and other properties. A few modes even had special new behaviors like the kicking seen in snowshoe mode or the twirling seen while figure skating. 

I demoed the new winter sports modes to my teammates and our small group of play-testers - mostly friends and family cheering us on - and they were a huge hit. My brother did all the game's audio, and he had a stroke of genius when he took figure-skating mode to the next level by adding Tchaikovsky's royalty-free Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker. He also went through and did amazing audio passes for all the modes - including the kicking in snowshoe mode and the gory chainsaw heard during snowmobile mode. Every satisfying crunch you hear in the game is thanks to him!

Meanwhile, we also reworked the game's gore system into something much more dynamic and interesting, where each character would have a random number of limbs severed while their blood particles would paint the ground with red decals. We worked super hard to make that system performant in a browser experience by implementing object-pooling and dynamic ragdoll reassembly for respawning decapitated characters. Getting that to all work correctly and within our performance constraints was one of the greatest technical challenges we faced. The number of ragdolls and limbs in the game is probably the biggest performance killer - and is the reason the game unfortunately does not work super well on older laptops. Given more time, I know we would've been able to optimize it even further to make it accessible to a wider audience. Still, we're very happy with how it came out, especially after seeing how streamers and play-testers have reacted to the ridiculous and gratuitous gore.

At some point in the process, our friend TKinthepocket offered to lend a hand in one area that the 3 of us were lacking: musical ability. As the game was shaping up, we knew that the game was being dragged down by the eerily silent background noise, and that needed to change. We casually threw the challenge at him, asking for a track that blends action, American vibes, and a touch of Christmas spirit. To our delight, he not only accepted but delivered something truly extraordinary. The moment players launch Red Snow, they are greeted by his incredible theme song, an integral part of the whole experience. Its infectious grooves immediately convey the essence of fun, setting the tone for an exciting adventure. As we grappled with concerns about the game's intensity, contemplating toning down the violent and edgy elements, his track emerged as a game-changer. Boasting a funky bass groove and a Christmas-inspired riff, his composition not only disarmed our worries but transformed Red Snow into the lighthearted experience we had envisioned.

In the final week of development, we spent a lot of time play-testing and tuning the game's "meta", meaning the difficulty curve, the risk and reward, and the point scaling over a single play-through.  We wanted the game to be easy enough to play and get into, but also provide a decent amount of depth and challenge for skilled players. And judging by the current spread of high scores on the leaderboard, I'm really happy with how that effort came out. One of the biggest issues with the game, IMO, is that the scoring system is pretty obtuse, and I would guess that only a few very dedicated players have figured out how to place near the top of the leaderboard. We went with an arcadey survival gameplay design - in which you try to survive as long as possible, with longer play-throughs and higher kill counts resulting in a higher score. I'll reveal the exact nature of the scoring system at the end of this post, and hopefully, that will inspire some players to get out there and try to place on the leaderboard. I'll also say that the current high score (around 9 million at the time of writing this) is definitely beatable and that a very skilled player could probably play the game indefinitely. But I'll reveal those tips and tricks at the end of this post.

In the last few days, we were scrambling to get in all of the last-minute polish, which was very important to us. And believe me when I say that there were tons of ideas, and even half-implemented features, that didn't make it in the end. One thing that we tweaked right down to the last minute was the UI. Again, basematerial was crushing it with HUD and menu elements that looked like they came straight out of a late 90s arcade game. He created a health bar with the perfect amount of rubbery old-school sheen, menu buttons that were perfectly stylized and pixelated, and the infamous face of John Clod beside the health bar, which would become more enraged with each kill. One shortcoming here was my implementation of his assets, as I struggled to get the scaling to work well using Unity's UI Toolkit, and the UI suffered from overlap and scale issues when played in windowed mode in a browser. Given a few more days, I would have normalized the size and scaling rules of every UI element to match, to do more justice to basematerial's artwork. Despite that, I think it looks great, and it was the perfect cherry on top for our retro action-game style.

We also had tons of ideas that we crammed in at the last minute, including the leaderboard, which we implemented super late in production using a great service we found right here on itch.io, called Leaderboard Creator by danqzq. I'm so glad that we got this working before the deadline, and we've been floored seeing the leaderboard fill up with impressive scores. 

Another last-minute push was the decision to include voice lines for the announcer and protagonist character during gameplay. We had a blast coming up with stupid voice lines, which we would pass back and forth in Discord to try and make each other laugh. I recorded them all at home, using my crappy mic, and spent hours screaming stupid lines like "I Feel So Good!" and "Go Back To the Bunny Slope!" in my home office, probably annoying my neighbors. This did end up being a huge challenge though, as I honestly did not have the proper equipment or setup for recording those lines, but I decided to say "screw it" for the sake of the game jam. We almost took out all the voice lines, because we were unhappy with the audio mixing. We also want to apologize for the janky audio quality, we know that it's sometimes hard to hear what's going on and we realize that the game could've been mixed a lot better. But we also have loved seeing people's reactions to the announcer's voice, and we especially love that "Yeti Kill!" and "Enemy Penguins Are Approaching!" never fail to get a reaction from players. So thanks for bearing with us there, and we promise to get proper audio recordings next time! 

There were a bunch of other things we crammed in the last couple days, including the "pixel babes" who cheer on the sidelines only to get covered in blood, the background elements in the main menu, the "Ready? Go!" announcer sequence, and oh yeah, I also added a dynamic day/night cycle, because why the hell not?

When the final day came to submit, we were absolutely wiped out. But we were really happy with what we had made. Sure, some of our original ideas didn't make it in: we originally wanted a full trick system with flipping, twisting, and grinding. We also wanted to give the player guns and other wacky weapons. But it didn't matter, because we had accomplished something incredible, something that all 500 entries in the jam also had also accomplished: we had finished a game! And just that was a huge accomplishment. Every member of our team had dabbled in game dev, but none of us had actually finished and released a project before. And damn was it a good feeling. So one more piece of unwarranted advice to my fellow aspiring game devs: finish something. Participate in jams, make a game in a day or a week, and share your work with others, as finishing something and getting feedback is probably the best thing you can do for your game dev career.

And finally, we got to the proverbial finish line, and the most fun part: playing all the amazing games in the Big Mode Game Jam! We played as many as we could, but still couldn't make a dent in the 500 entries. The talent on display in this jam completely wowed us, and we seriously loved connecting with all of you during the voting period. Not only do we want to thank you for playing Red Snow and leaving comments, but we want to thank you for making such amazing games, which made this such a vibrant, lively, and friendly competition. Every single dev involved should be super proud of what they accomplished because the talent in this jam was just insane. Even those who weren't played on the official twitch stream: know that your games were played and appreciated and that you achieved a HUGE accomplishment. We are honored to have been chosen alongside hundreds of amazing games, and humbled in a way that we find hard to put into words.

Finally, we want to thank the jam's organizers for running a great competition and an awesome 3-day stream, including BigMode Ben, BigMode Sean, Dunkey, Leah, and Biggie. Thank you so much, it was an honor!

Since some players have asked, I will end this post with some tips and tricks for getting a high score in RED SNOW:

Red Snow Tips and Tricks

Having trouble getting on the leaderboard? Struggling to understand where your points are coming from? Let us help you game the system. 

• The scoring is pretty simple: you gain a base number of points for each kill. 
• Consecutive kills are rewarded with a higher score. When the screen starts shaking and the HUD element of John Clod's face becomes bloody and enraged, it means you're getting consecutive kills that are worth significantly more points. Try to chain kills together to maximize your earnings. 
• Furthermore, the points you earn from each kill are multiplied by the current wave, which means that gameplay in later waves is rewarded significantly more. So it's worth it to try and survive as long as possible. 

But there are a few twists to this system:

• If the player kills one of the mysterious yetis that spawns once per wave, they are rewarded with a ridiculously high score, which is also multiplied by the wave counter. 
• Also, note that penguin kills are worth about 4x the points of human kills. Penguins appear every 3 waves.
• Health pickups that you miss on one wave will still be there on subsequent waves, so you can memorize the positions of missed health pickups, which can also be spotted from above during chairlift mode. 
• For the power-up modes, opinions on the best mode vary from player to player. But we have some thoughts: 
  • The snowmobile has the largest kill radius as well as a high strafe force, making it great for getting consecutive kills. 
  • The luge is excellent for a quick getaway when you're overwhelmed. 
  • The saucer mode... kind of sucks, so maybe avoid it if you're going for a high score. 
• One more hilarious hack: the optimal strategy for chairlift mode is to try to balance the chairlift completely upside-down, where all enemy bullets will miss you completely.
• In closing: we've noticed that highly skilled players usually focus on yeti kills, and work to survive as long as possible by optimizing their health pickups. 

Thanks Again!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! The support from our fans has made this experience so awesome. We'll be doing a few small updates in the coming weeks - including performance patches, bug fixes, and balancing tweaks. So stay tuned for more updates!

Sincerely,

Dolphin Studio, aka CharlieDolphin, LyerionClash, basematerial, and Tkinthepocket