Hello, everyone!

We teamed up with Hugo Miraballes, Martín Martelletti, Kevin Miles, Lautaro Bravo de la Serna, Santiago Bravo de la Serna and Hernan Colantuono, with extra help from Antonela Valente with the voices, and made Yemita for the Newgrounds Game Jam 2021.

The theme was Egg

Day 1/10

The first day we took a lot of time planning what we wanted to do. We went through game genres like puzzle, action, horror, everything… Finally, we decided to make a game of a Yolk on a rampage inspired in Gudetama, Katamari Demacy and what would the community of Newgrounds do with these.

From there, Hugo started making our main character while the rest of us started working on the basic mechanics using boxes.

Day 2/10

This was the first full day we worked on and we actually made a lot of progress from this. Lauta and I worked on the basic layout of the map where the player would run as chaotic as possible but trying to give it some paths he could take and we also worked on the character movement, though still needed some extra work, some hazards and the camera.

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Also, this day Kevin got to work on the main menu and Martín was able to start tweaking the player movement. Meanwhile, Hugo finished the character with the basic animations we needed to start and helped to integrate it to the game.

It was a nice thing to have for the second day because we started to have clearly what was going to need extra polishment and what the game needed to be fun.

Day 3/10

A lot of polishment came this day. From one side, we focused on making the character controller feel a lot better than before. At this point we had 18 parameters that tweeked and gave the final feel to the character movement (and more to came!)

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Meanwhile, Hugo worked on all the destroyables and the broken glasses that Martín began to place and with Lauta we made the broken pieces pop. All these things gave the game a more alive feeling. Also, this day Lauta started with the Chef (the pink box behind the bar) and we had almost a full behaviour of it working.

Day 4/10

I barely was able to contribute this day. I was vaccinated the day before and I felt terrible with fevers and everything. Anyway, the rest of the team was able to make some progress, most in the level.

Also, Kevin started working on the particles that we were going to add and we helped to find some references for Hugo to model.

Day 5/10

By this day we made a huge list with all the things that left on the game. We playtest it and tried it to find out what the game was needing to be more fun. We agreed that it still needed to have a more fluid movement and it needed to be faster so that would be something to tackle in the next days. Also, a few cool ideas to make the gameplay more meaningful were written down and we planned to check them out to see if they would be a nice fit.

Meanwhile, we got some progress with the chef and also had a bunch of new assets and textures. As you can see in the image below, the stools, the texture of the floor and benches were some of the things we added.

For last, we had a lot of fun leaving random messages at would be the menu. Hopefully they aren’t too misspelled or with gramatical errors but I can’t promise too much.

Day 6/10

At the sixth day Martín had the idea of big light pannels where the player would bounce around and also worked as the extra level of height we were planning to have in order to give more depth to the game and space to explore. I think it was a nice addition that added diversity to the map.

Also, we made a big change in the gameplay and now the player doesn’t have lives, instead, it has a timer so it can move a lot more freely without worrying about all the broken stuff. With this, Lauta also worked on making the end game sequence so he took care of making all the gameplay flow this day.

Meanwhile, Kevin worked on textures for the bottles adding labels. He searched for interesting texts he could add to the labels and I think they look great and original

For last, I worked on making the sushi convoy belt that now drags not only the character but everything it goes over it and made a system that we would use later for the medals inside the game.

Day 7/10

On this day I worked in fixes with everything related to the physics. Adjusted colliders, adjusted forces, performance optimizations and fixed bugs were the character would jump weird after colliding with what was going to be the chef.

Talking about the chef, Lauta made a really fun change for it. At first, we had it throw knives to the player but, since we are not going to have a lives, he decided to change it for bottles that break on impact adding more chaos to the game. The bottles can disturb the player but what it is really fun is the chaotic feel it now gives. Also, apart from the chef, he added food attached to balloons to fill the top level with the lamps. One of our focus was the need to add more variety to the level and we thought this was the right direction.

Lastly, Hugo worked in a ton of art assets. He had a huge list of 3D things to do and he was focusing purely and exclusive on it. Though it is a lot left, he already made a bunch of progress and the map started to feel a lot better to the eye than those placeholder cubes.

Day 8/10

By this day we were ready to start with the medals so we brainstormed a bunch of them, wrote them down in a google sheet and then Kevin made the art for most of them while I coded most of them.

Apart from the medals, Hugo did all the model, texture, rig and animations of the chef character and with some help of Lauta they had it working that same day. It was nice to finally have the chef instead of the pink box because it added a lot of life to the scene that was missing.

By this day, we also noticed we weren’t following too much the theme but we were ok with this because we understood that the game design decisions we took were aiming to make the game a more fun experience.

Day 9/10

At the end of this day we had almost everything working and the game almost ready to deliver. We finished integrating most of the medals, only a few icons left from them. We also added a bunch of particles when the stuff breaks, get hits and moves. And Hugo added a bunch of new art assets that gave a lot of life to the game such as the ramen inside the bowls

Also, Martín and Lauta worked in a new area that is behind the sushi belt. With that area, and the medals we aimed to invite the player to do some exploration and replay the game more than once.

For last, Lauta got to add a lot of sound effects. Although we still needed to add the music and adjust the sound effects after that, it was already feeling really good!

Day 10/10

Last day of the game jam we worked on integrating the last medals, some screens, the music and wrapping up the Newgrounds API.

Also, from the art side, last details from the screens were polished and a lot of decoration like the boxes were added to finish giving life to the japanese restaurant. It was a nice thing to have it all wrapped up and being able to play it as a solid game.

3 things that could have been better

• The camera didn’t work as planned. We knew there were some issues with the camera but we never got the time to actually have it as we wanted. Maybe we should have dedicated extra time to it but it was still a very difficult task because we got used to it really soon.
• Apparently we can’t stay in the theme of the game jam. We always start with an idea we think will fit the theme but we the time we start to make changes and we end up with a game that doesn’t hit the theme at all.
• Having one person to make all the 3D art was a bit insane. Hugo had to work way too much and with an intense rhythm in order to get everything done. Even more, at times it was difficult for Lauta and me to find stuff to code because many times we were blocked waiting for art.

3 things that did work out

• Making everything breakable was a really fun thing. Somebody even said it reminded him to Goat Simulator, and for me that is a total win. Once again, abusing the use of physics in Unity I think that really paid off.
• Hugo has been able to make a bunch of art thanks to vertex paint. Not gonna lie, I am not sure how he did it but if you have an artist and you are aiming for a 3D game for a game jam, it can save you a lot of time so you probably should look it up!
• The huge amount of medals integrated with the Newgrounds API have an extra purpose to the game and I really liked that. It even gave a reason to explore and not only make a lot of havoc to get a highscore.

8th of 104 games

Luckly for us, the judges decided the game finished in the podium, exactly 8th, from the 104 submissions that were uploaded.

The whole team clearly put their all into the pure charm of Yemita, with very clean 3d visuals and catchy music. The gameplay too, while a bit difficult to get the hang of, is simple and fun, and I love all the different nooks and crannies to eggsplore in the level.

Eggburn from Newgrounds

It was the first time we finished on the podium based on judges votes so it was a nice thing to have. Also, at least from me, it was an extra because it was on Newgrounds and you know I am kinda a fan of Newgrounds 🙂

Where can I play it?

If you didn’t play it yet, I recommend you to play it at Newgrounds while being logged in so you unlock medals and upload your highscore to the table!

That would be all for now! Thank you for reading!