Development of Timeless Apocalypse

Retrospective

Unity hosted a game jam to celebrate 20 years of the most-used game engine and of course I joined in.

Like always, I will talk about what went right or wrong with this game, and the possibility for an enhanced version of "Timeless Apocalypse".

The theme

The theme for this jam was "Timeless", once again, I didn't have any game-play-related ideas come to mind immediately. Eventually I was reminded of one of these "Quiet Apocalypse" videos. There are some where it's explained that humanity has accepted it's fate, being constantly haunted by giant horrific creatures, along with the typically black & white look I translated that into a kind of "timeless" apocalypse.

The idea

"Timeless Apocalypse" is a game set in modern times, where giant creatures have invaded earth and caused havok globally. You are with a group of survivors who refuse to accept this fate. Stationed as a gunner on your group's truck you shoot down any creatures in sight.

As with my previous GMTK 2025 entry: Slingshot, this game suffers from the same problem where the theme isn't part of the active game-play in any way, but this time I feel better about it, since the quiet apocalypse idea really caught me.

Developing the game

Development-wise Timeless Apocalypse was a testing ground for a new collection of systems I've been working on for almost a full year. Included are an audio system, a scene transition system, a cursor system and a library of common utilities, everything has been developed by myself and this project marks the first actual use of these systems. More on that will eventually be revealed in a separate, dedicated post. For now, I can say that pretty much everything went well and without any major problems.

Will there be an enhanced version of Timeless Apocalypse?

While I am not sure about starting  an enhanced version right away, there actually is an update for the jam version coming soon, which I'm working on right now. I think this game is very suitable for further content, features, etc... so I'm not opposed to eventually doing it, as I have with Devil's Arcade and Battleground Cleanup.

In short: I can definitely imagine doing it in the future.