Ludum Dare 29: 72 Hour Jam Game: The Fields

The above video has a breakdown of game design and technical art decisions made while making my latest jam game "The Fields". Hit the jump for a link where you can play the game, a quick synopsis of the game, bunch of links about shaders and graphics programming.



To play The Fields, follow the link below. Don't forget to read the instructions!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=29430

The Fields is about a colony of bunnies (one at a time) trying to make their way across the mine-laden no-mans-land of a WWI battlefield. Make your way across each field and try to sidestep or jump over any landmines in your way. Dig to learn how close you are to a landmine: red is one block away, yellow is two.

Themed after the costly and muddled nature of the war effort in WWI, The Fields is game about managing risk with limited information. You will very rarely know exactly where every landmine is, only that there is one nearby. Some levels are easier to complete by sacrificing a bunny to learn more about which bombs are where so that the path is clearer and safer for the next one in line.

My main reference points for RSRM development were these two:
Rust ltd Alloy Physical Shader Framework
Josh Ols's blog (I didn't know it at the time, but the posts I was looking at here turned out to be early development for Alloy. It turns out it's a very small world):

As far as I know, RSRMs were pioneered by the Double Fine team working on Brütal Legend. They have a paper you can buy out there somewhere, but I ended up just reverse engineering the technique, so I'm probably not doing it exactly the same way as anyone else (though, there's only so many ways to skin this cat).

As far as PBR reading, I looked at the guide on marmoset, though their maps are exactly what I was annoyed by when I said I wanted my maps to be "human readable". http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
At the bottom of this marmoset page are a lot of PBR links, all of which are worth reading: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory

Sean Murphy's GDC talk is up on the vault, if you have a subscription.

Ryan Gatts: Art, Game Design, Programming.
Nick Cooper: Programming, Game Design.

Discussion on /r/gamedev

Read the poem here (It's short)