Posted March 16, 2023 by Impy
The v1 release of this game was put together in its entirety in just one month for Strawberry Jam 7. My subscribers voted it as my next side-project based on the attached pitch illustration. I intend to make at least two big updates, with an option for this game to become my next major project after Monster Monsoon is finished if there's enough interest in seeing it taken further.
The scope of the jam didn't give me enough time to add the full cast. Expect to see the missing characters from the concept art as well as some familiar Saucertop residents from Monster Monsoon making an appearance in future updates! The idea of a shared setting between these two games was a very late decision, but I think that it will allow for some fun interactions and world-building to take place.
The combat system went through several revisions. My initial plan for was simple auto-resolved battles as shown in the pitch image, but I they just didn't sound like something that would keep the players engaged. I wanted to keep the player's control low, but with interactible items and physics to create a sort of self-playing platformer. You can see some of how this idea was intended and played out in the attached images. It didn't work nearly as well in practice as it did in my head, both in terms of level generation and player frustration, leading to 6 code overhauls. I solved most of the issues by locking everything to a grid and implementing turn-based movement.
I hope that you enjoyed playing the v1 release. I have released a patch this morning to fix some major bugs. A second patch will be released for everyone at the end of the month featuring some improvements to the combat system. Development for v2 will start next month with a public release in May.