So I've decided to take on the Alphabet Superset challenge by Struthless, who is a general lifestyle, psychology, mental health and creativity youtuber whom I really like. The challenge consists in making a thing every week, following a general theme and using the same tools, with the specific theme for the week derived from consecutive letters of the alphabet. It sounds convoluted, but it's really pretty simple and ingenious. You can check it out here: https://www.alphabetsuperset.com/. 

Why I'm doing this? I'm a very tired dad of a very lively 4-year old, and I also happen to have ADHD, which means that on my best days I'm able to generally function, but on my worst days I'm a trainwreck juggling a million things and never achieving anything. I need focus and direction, and also deadlines. Lots of them. You can see where it's going.

Obviously, I'm a game maker, so my "something" is a game every week. However, this is tough as a tired dad with ADHD, so the things I make will be very limited in scope. More like prototypes or vertical slices. But I made a few games in week-long game jams, so I know I can do it, and I know how to limit scope to achieve it. As a side note, this is the best way to crank my creativity up to eleven - tight deadline and harsh limitations.

My general theme is "sense of mystery and wonder". I am inspired by old 8-bit computer adventure games I played on my C64 as a kid. I had no idea what I was doing, it didn't help that the games were cryptic and obtuse, often requiring the manual to have any chance of getting anywhere, and I knew only basic primary school English at the time (I'm Polish), which didn't help either. But I enjoyed them immensely despite all this. I was just fascinated that there were small worlds hidden in my computer, worlds which I could explore and marvel at. That was enough for me.

So, following the theme, and the scope, I also decided that the only tools I'm going to use to make my games will be Bitsy and Pico-8. Both are great, because they offload many decisions and chores you have to do in the course of making your game. For example, you don't have to worry about resolution - there is only one, 128x128. Pico-8 has a fixed palette, and in Bitsy you only chooose three colors - one for background, one for tiles, and one for everything else. There is only one input method. And exporting a shippable bundle is extremely easy. Both tools are also self-contained, meaning that you create assets, script your game and run it within the tool itself, and also they will run almost anywhere. I can make Bitsy games on my phone, and Pico-8 will fly on anything, even a 15 year old netbook.

Phew, so now that we know how, let's discuss what: this week the letter was A (obviously), and I've chosen "after the war" as my theme. I've wanted to do a space exploration game in Bitsy for some time now, so it was the perfect opportunity. At first I was a bit slow, and not sure whether I have anything interesting to say, but in the end I think it turned out OK. It's more a vignette than a full game, but you can win or lose, and it's short enough so that its flaws are not as noticeable.

Also, I've hit a few limitations of Bitsy along the way. It's hard to make anything appear to 'move' on the screen, you have to create separate rooms with stuff in them placed in different locations, and then use dialogue scripts or fake objects to create an illusion of motion. Also, checking for conditions is very rudimentary and very rough. There are no boolean variables, and no logical operators. So if you want to check whether two variables are "true" (1), you add them together and see if the result is 2. It's not ideal, but also prevents you from overscoping, as in larger projects it would become impossible to maintain. Bitsy is still awesome though - it allows you to get started with your story on the screen in minutes, not even hours.

So far so good. The next week is B. I've created a schedule for myself, so that I don't overdo it, and I've decided that on weekends I'll think of the theme for the upcoming week and figure out what I am going to do. Then, the development will be from Monday to Friday, in several blocks. I will post games on Itch and blog about them here. Wish me luck!