In the month of October, 2021, I joined in my first Game Jam, known as ‘Devtober’. I worked to create a prototype of a cricket game to rival other fantasy sports titles such as Blood Bowl. This game is called ‘Doom Cricket.’

Part One: Retrospective

The criteria for participating in Devtober are:

- Work on game development every day

- Tweet about your work

- Like, comment, share and participate in discussions

- Submit your project at Itch.io

My progress on all of these fronts was sporadic and unfinished.

I did not work on game development every day, instead I managed to show up about fifty percent of the time. On those days, I was following a very focused approach, including making thoughtful comments in my Git repos and generally proceeding with an attitude that I am in this for the long haul. Which I am. This jam was picked mainly to ignite my enthusiasm for game development. Which it did.

I did tweet about my work most of the days that I showed up, and in doing so managed to get a little bit of response and interest. This was extremely motivating.

I did post a comment on the Foundry developer discord briefly explaining my project. I received a response from a legend in the development community who mentioned interest in seeing any progress I’d like to share. Of course then I did not share any progress on that channel! I still have a lot of imposter syndrome in the game dev space, and I wanted to get things to be ‘a bit better’ before sharing. I still do, but I will be linking this article in that space as proof of something happening.

I’m sorry to say I did not engage in any real discussion or research with other game jammers. In truth I was running at maximum power to even show up and do any work on my game. I am truly in awe of people who manage to create things and also maintain an ongoing social media presence. I used to think I was good at communicating and being social, but being connected to others through Devtober simply did not happen.

But, did I actually finish my project and submit it on Itch.io? I did not.

Based on above, it would be reasonable to feel a bit dejected about my progress in Devtober, but in fact I feel the opposite. Despite not actually completing any of the official objectives, I did achieve a lot of things, such as:

Selected Prototype Engine

I spent some time evaluating different ways of bringing Doom Cricket to life, and in the end I decided to use the virtual tabletop software Foundry VTT. I made this choice early which allowed me to spend time learning about it through October.

It became clearer to me that it is a powerful tool for all kinds of game development. The ability to create actors and rollable tables and macros on top of maps and tiles means there are countless innovative ways I can imagine the tool being used to create fun games. I got so inspired that I bought a book on JavaScript and am feeling very confident about this tool being the gateway for me into improved front-end web development as well as a scratch pad for game design.

Created Development to Deployment Path

I learned how to develop packages and deploy them into Foundry using release tagging. This made me feel a bit more confident about the end to end workflow, which is an essential thing in software development I think. So I got the nuts and bolts down and could (and can still) iterate and move my idea forward with an understanding on how and where I will deploy.

*I had some fun with the release naming.*

Created Visual Art Style

Visual art is my weakest link in the game development stack, but I am proud to say that I managed to overcome some fear-of-failure and just went ahead and made some stuff. The assets are predictably low-fi and rough which fits both the nature of the game jam medium and also the aesthetic I am shooting for in the game. Strong Mörk Borg influences too.

Here are my two hero images:

I am happy with the colour palette, which is functionally an ‘anti-cricket’ colour scheme, applied through inversion in Photoshop.

I used Photoshop and Aseprite to make these and found the process extremely fun, and the result pleasing. I even experimented with animated tokens although I could not get them to work exactly as planned in Foundry yet.

Part Two: The Future Of Doom Cricket

Elevator Pitches (pun intended)

Doom Cricket is the game of fantastical and statistical cricket which will launch in 2023.

The rules of cricket played with the tools of war.

Bat, bowl, field, fight…and analyse statistics.

80s cricket meets 80s heavy metal, set in the far future from now.

Gameplay

The game plays like a mix of chess and XCOM. Two players take it in turn to give instructions to their teams. The dice decide the outcome of any single event, but a competent coach will play around the randomness to achieve victory.

The game mostly follows the rules of Normal Cricket. There are six balls in an over and all of the standard rules apply.

The most obvious difference is the introduction of, indeed encouragement of, violence and trickery on the field. In the future, audiences are jaded and thirsty for bloodsport. This is indicative of the decline of civilisation as we know it, and a return to the gladiatorial age.

Cricketers possess basic stats (Bat, Bowl, Field, Fight), but may also learn various special moves to increase their versatility. There will be seasonal play and progression for those who want to lead their teams to victory over an extended time period.

At certain points during gameplay, a Fight may be initiated. The fielding team has the advantage of numbers, but how will they fare against the heavily armoured Batters?

Umpires decisions are final, unless you want to fight them too….

The game is built from the ground up to facilitate advanced statistical analysis. Once you have finished you game, upload your file to receive detailed insights and contribute to the IDCBOK (Intergalactic Doom Cricket Body Of Knowledge).

Technical Notes

The prototype for the game will be developed in Foundry VTT and be distributed as a standalone ruleset requiring a small amount of human intervention to play. Players will move their pieces on the board, and similar to other board game adaptions, an amount of automation will be present to make things smooth.

The graphics are designed to be simple and thematically interesting, versus realistic. A basic set of animations will exist for each cricketer.

After a successful launch of the tabletop game, I will consider porting the game into a more fully-automated engine for players who want to use mobile or consoles.

Thematic Influences

80’s Cricket

This is, after all, the era of cricket I am most familiar with. Big moustaches, flamboyant performances, the players are athletic but they are not athletes.

Battle Chess

A tactical game which rewards play with hilarious animations. See also, Mortal Kombat fatalities and Stick Death for examples of the kind of finishing moves to expect, although maybe not as violent - inserted of violence, the game animations will focus on fantastical transformations and magic.

Ultima IV

The graphical style is necessarily brief and gets to the point. While there will not be an open world to explore, there will be some level of conversation possible with fans, reporters and the coaching team.

Masters Of The Universe

The game will contain fantastical and science-fantasy elements.

The Plan From Here

I have a loose plan to release the game in January 2023. This is assuming the concept can hold my attention for this amount of time, and ideally I can find others interested in developing it with me.

At launch there will be a minimal set of art assets for two teams of players. I can imagine these being expanded in various ‘seasons’. The game will be launched at an achievable price point for cricket fans everywhere.

I will leave with a few words on my motivations for this project.

As a young boy, I had a deep interest in cricket, in fact it would be better to call it an obsession. I recall playing full test matches with my brother and friends who could also muster similar interest, using a real scoring book and recording every ball. I also was fascinated with fantasy worlds and roleplaying games. I would like to make a game which beings together these two interests for gamers across generations and across the world.

Doom Cricket Development Log 1