~~~~~~~~~~~~
puddlejumper
~~~~~~~~~~~~
prototype for thatgamecompany
2011.03.27


I hope you enjoy playing this.  It was a lot of fun to build.


Running
-------

Unzip puddlejumper_win32.zip somewhere.  Run the game via the batch file
"puddlejumper.bat", NOT purity.x86.exe.


How to Play
-----------

Hopefully it's all simple enough to figure out by playing!  If not, there are
a few training messages that appear in the world.  If you miss those or just
want a reference:

WASD / arrow keys - move
Mouse - look
Left mouse button (hold) - become heavy
Right mouse button (hold) - become light

Being heavy or light changes how you move through the world, and the effects
of your primary action - bouncing - on the things in it.


Notes
-----

Given the test's focus on intrinsically satisfying movement and feedback, the
design of this experience definitely prioritizes the initial impression over
lasting interaction depth.  I'd be happy to explain in depth how I'd approach
turning this into a full experience.

For this prototype, rather than jump into a new 3D engine I'd be less familiar
with, I went with something primitive that I knew extremely well: the open
source id Tech 3 (Quake 3) codebase I used for my IGF 2008 game, Purity. 
Almost all the content and player-facing features you see here are new -
Purity's meta-game UI is about all that remains.

I ran into several technical limitations while building this, but by far the
saddest one is a strange, non-trivial-to-fix limit on the number of certain
types of entities in a map.  Because of this, I was forced to drastically
reduce the number of little "buds" - the things that pop up when you bounce
near them.  They're the bubble wrap of this experience, and it kills me that I
wasn't able to cover the map with a lot more of them.


Source Code
-----------

To get an idea of the code I added to and modified for this prototype, search
the codebase for "TGC".  My rough estimate is I wrote about 800 lines of new
code, and changed about 100-200 existing lines.

To compile the source in Windows, you'll need to install MinGW and run 'make'
in the source directory.  All the required libs should be included.  Compiling
in Linux should work out-of-the-box with most distros.  Compiling in Mac OSX
should work but is untested.


Attributions
------------

The music track is "Xtal" from Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works 85-92".  I
did not obtain the artist's permission for this prototype.