TIME TO DANCE! was for us, a bit more than just a jam game. Well, of course it was a LUDUM DARE game, but also the (last?) occasion to experience our methodology before working on our first real game.

OUR APPROACH

savvy community is above all, you guessed it, a community, which means, we've made a game created by all the members participating to the jam. But that's not it, the community goes nowhere (or not far) without useful feedback, communication about progress,  theme,  ideas is one of the keys to create a game you will feel satisfied with.

DAY ONE 👇

As we really care about this part of the jam, we gathered once again to discuss the theme "STUCK IN A LOOP", eating croissants and drinking coffee. We recently started to use a bunch of post-it as we wanted everyone to express opinions, share ideas, inspiration and problematics. It happened to be the best solution to take decisions respecting everyone's wishes, so that's definitely something we'll use again for the post jam version and our future game;

DAY TWO 👇

We now have a solid concept to work with, about dancing, looping, AI and humans. There's a lot to do, but a lot of time was saved thanks to the post-it. Dynamic was really great, sharing the first concept arts was a lot of joy as we witnessed people's enthusiasm. We ended up with a betatest which was essential to progress. This part is always the trickiest yet most exciting part, because you know, it's easy to come up with new ideas, new art "Oh, it would be great if we could add this, do this etc", but always keep in mind that it's a 3-day run ;). Staying relevant and efficient is a thing.

LAST DAY 👇

We work a lot, drink a lot of coffee, SHARE SHARE SHARE, read feedback from the betatest, draw the finals. It's coming to an end. The first version of TIME TO DANCE! is finally ready, we are proud of our entry, which is the best feeling to have when sharing something with the community. Now that's a new time dedicated to  R A T I N G S. It was great to see people enjoying our game as well as testing and rating some really amazing entries, there are a bunch of talented people out there.

WHAT WE'VE GOT

• We got over 100 people to play and rate our game! Over 60 left us priceless feedback, advice and encouragements.
• We scored a 4-or-above in every category!! That is so heartwarming and we interpret it as something like “the game is very good as is, and can become excellent if we work on the aspects mentioned in the feedback”!
• We scored especially great in innovation and that’s the core of the kind of games we want to make in the future.

WHAT'S NEXT?

As we really enjoyed making this entry and because we care about feedback, we are now working on a Post-Jam version which will be available very soon. We’ll address the main issues that surfaced, include many players ideas and add other things we thought would be cool… favourite choreography contest & leaderboard, boss-fight, increased difficulty, new levels and music, etc etc! Here are some new artworks made for the new version by Eliot Trouttet, our dear illustrator.

Stay tuned and safe ❤️

vv