Jumping in

I started working on a game today for the Games Now! Autumn 2023 Jam. It's been a while since I did a jam and I was worried about time so hopefully I can make something small and fun. In this DevLog I'll try to cover what the game is, why I'm making it and what I hope to achieve.

What is Caid?

According to Wikipedia "Caid (Irish pronunciation: [kadʲ]) (meaning "stuffed ball") is a collective name used in reference to various ancient and traditional Irish mob football games" [1]. I've always enjoyed Gaelic Football and my son plays every week so I thought it would be cool to make a game about it but not to take it too seriously. A version of Caid was played as a cross-country game where two opposing villages would essentially play capture the flag with a pig bladder. The whole village would be involved and there were few rules.

For my game, I want to take the essence of Caid- two teams of opposing villagers and one ball then leave it up to players to decide on the rules of the game: What do they want to do with the ball? How do they win? What is fair play in a game with no rules? I'm reminded of the book The Ignorant Schoolmaster [2] and I wonder how a game can encourage players to learn it without handholding.  I don't know if this will be fun, it's more a sandbox than a game but I'm curious to explore! 

Why?

• I want to make something simple and fun, nothing too serious
• I like sports but don't really play sports games
• In the theme of missing, I'm omitting most of the rules of the game, there is no score, no goals, no clear procedures for play and I'm curious about what players will do
• I want to play around with game feel
• I just finished my PhD and I want to make something that's not words!

Work so far

• I jumped straight into Unity
• I added a plane and set up an isometric camera
• I added a capsule to represent the player and a sphere to represent the ball
• I added physics and basic player movement
• I downloaded the Tiny Toon People from the asset store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/toony-tiny-people-demo-11318...
• I set up animations and inverse kinematics to make the models grab and reach for the ball
• I added ball pick up, dropping and kicking
• I added a player 2
• I replaced the camera with a cinemachine group camera to keep track of both players and the ball
• I added a system to swap control to the closest player to the ball

To do

• I need to update the movement, it doesn't feel nice
• I need to add particle effects to the player's feet
• Scuffle effect when players tackle
• I need to change to the new input system to handle controllers better
• A basic AI would be nice when characters aren't under player control
• I need to add some points of interest and things that might encourage players to be playful with

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caid_(sport)

[2] Ranciere, J. (1991) The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.