'Explosion' Design Notes

I joined Da Explosion Jam (https://itch.io/jam/da-explosion-jam) especially because it's deadline fitted perfectly to my schedule. The other reason was because it's topic was simple and distinct from the things I enjoy. That's why it was a bit of a challange for me.

Main thoughts/ideas:

• The game has to be simple and easy to make.
• The game has to be short, because the players (other participants, as judges) probably will have a short period of time to play it.
• The explosions should be a visual addition without any effect on a gameplay.

The desing process:

1. The word "explosion" bringed the Polish techno song Explosion by Kalwi&Remi to my mind. I made an "8bit" simplified version of this song using BeepBox.co
2.  I decided to join this with a simple mechanics of a car on three lanes, avoiding obstacles.
3. To make the game more satisfying and in harmony with the "visual addition" idea I thought that the fire should not destroy the car. That gave a cinematic feeling of driving through the fire.
4. I decided that the obstacles should appear in the rythm of a song, to make the game more pleasant for the subconciousness of the player.  
5. After building a prototype, the first problem appeared: T.N.T's as an only obstacle made a game hard for the first playtrough. The solution: adding stones as obstacles.
6. Even then, the game was coarse and boring to play,  although it was designed for a very short playtime (128 beats of a song ≈ 100 seconds). The solution for this:
   1.  Making obstacle pattern different for each phrase of the song:
      1. First phrase: Obstacles appear on each beat of the bar, except for the fourth beat (to make it easier for the new player). Also, the dynamite appears on first and fifth beat of the bar.
      2. Second phrase: A very coarse beat appears. That's why there only obstacles appearing are stones.
      3. Third phrase: A shuffling beat appears. The obstacles are stones and dynamite, alternately, one after the other. I designed like this for the explosions to be in synchro with music.
      4. Fourth phrase: Music stays the same. It is the last phrase of the game, that's why I decided to go wild with explosions, so there are only dynamites coming in.
7. I joined this with a starting screen full of explosion to suggest to the player what they should expect.

Although the difficulty levels of the phases vary in a slight, delicate way, the fourth phase is designed too look as the hardest one. In fact, it is the easiest one, because you can drive through fire (this fact makes T.N.T. easier obstacles than stones, which don't disappear in explosion but go all the way down, off the camera view). It ss  only the players brain stating that if there is so much explosion here, then it must be hard!