Devlogs
Build 0.3.01: Music/SFX, Leaderboards and Stats, oh my!
Posted April 21, 2023 by M0N0SYNTHS
#GDevelop #leaderboards #audio #music
Today marked a bit of a tactics shift... Rather than make the game run endlessly, I decided to institute a time limit.
Here's why:
- Numerical notation in GDevelop (the engine used for McGuffins) is kinda lacking. I had started playing with ways to automate the display of numbers beyond the default limit, but then it hit me: I'd have to do the same thing for all of the individual functions as well, since they'd eventually creep up past the trillions/quadrillions/etc. too. Doing something like that in a "no-code" engine like GDevelop is possible, but it's a lot of extra clicking whereas in other engines I could do it more elegantly and efficiently in code.
- Since the game is being developed for the Gamedev.js Jam 2023, it made more sense to focus on the jam's theme: time. By instituting a time limit, the gameplay also gains a sense of urgency - you want to click that Buy button more times and faster, and/or automate your AutoBuyers to make the most of the time within the time limit.
- I found some really good music files in a package of game music by Slumber Party Games that I bought a while back. They really sound like they tie in with the theme of time and with the time limit, that sense of urgency in gameplay feels much nicer.
- Finally, I'd been wanting to implement leaderboards for the game, since GDevelop has an easy way to do that with authentication via their gd.games portal. Without a time limit though, having leaderboards for an endless/idle clicker game is pointless: basically whoever started playing first could just leave the game running and keep uploading their score and never lose 1st place.
So... once I decided I had a plan for the time limit, I set it to 6 hours (in-game time, can be sped up). From there, I started making the global variable for the score, added a "Game Over" scene with its own layout and a separate music track, and then went back and made more variables for all kinds of stats!
The "Game Over" scene now adds stats for basically all of the stuff you can buy: how many AutoClickers, AutoBuyers of each kind (x1/x2/x3), SPEEDups, final time scale, and even how many times you clicked the dang Buy button and how many McGuffins you earned by spamming that thing! I kinda went nuts with it, because why not???
So yeah. All that, plus the music and Buy button SFX that changes pitch when you click it. There's some design updates too, including the background image version being changed to the B&W version w/RGB Chromatic Aberration fx. There's even a mute button, because I'm not (always) an a-hole.
There were some minor bug fixes too, hopefully no bugs added. The "How to Play" tutorial got some better clarification, and I added some credits at the end of the tutorial page too.
Hope you enjoy.
Files
McGuffins in Time-0_3_01.apk 7.6 MB
McGuffins in Time-0_3_01-windows.exe 62 MB
McGuffins in Time-0_3_01-macos.zip 80 MB
McGuffins in Time-0_3_01-linux.AppImage 83 MB