Posted June 07, 2023 by Martin Wimpress
This is my 2nd game jam. My last was in 2021, and I leant loads, including Godot which I spent 2 weeks learning before the jam. If you’re interested, here’s Little Spy, my entry for My First Game Jam: Summer 2021
Other things I learned are
So, with that in mind, this DevLog entry outlines what I did before Day 1 of Linux Game Jam 2023.
When I learned Celeste was initially a game jam PoC made with PICO-8, I wanted to learn more about it. So, I’m using PICO-8 for this jam, and I’ve spent my spare time learning it in the last couple of weeks. I already love it, I think I might be spending some time with PICO-8 after this jam, it’s just too much fun.
I read the PICO-8 manual twice, it gave me real vibes for the 8-bit computers I used to own. I spent some time looking at PICO-8 carts and learning from others’ code, and I joined some PICO-8 Discord servers to share ideas and made some demos.
This a sequel to a ridiculous coding challenge we did on the Ubuntu Podcast back in 2019, where we each made a game using bash
🤦 There is video evidence of this monstrous idea, but it was good fun.
I had a basic game design with the original Antsy Alien Attack and thought it deserved a refresh using something more appropriate.
So, with my game idea and some PICO-8 skills acquired, I started planning what I’ll try to make. I wanted to minimise time spent making SFX, Music and graphics, so I also did some asset discovery to determine what I would use to make the game. I really want to focus mostly on code during the jam. No need for more explanation, here’s the GitHub repo.
As this is a Linux Game Jam, I thought packaging PICO-8 games for Linux users would be appropriate. So, yesterday I made a placeholder app, created some scripts to export to all supported platforms and packaged the Linux exports as a .deb and a Snap. If I get time, making an AppImage and Flatpak are stretch goals.
Creating an Itch page and publishing Little Spy burned up loads of time last jam. And getting the last build updated was frantic. So, yesterday evening I wrote some initial docs (based on my plans), pushed them to GitHub and then created an Itch.io and Snap Store page for Antsy Alien Attack Pico based on those proto-docs.
I’ve made a script that uses butler and snapcraft to automate publishing new builds to Itch.io and the Snap Store. I am hopeful this will maximise my jam time in the closing hours of the event 🤞
My placeholder app is text, some wavy text that says the game is coming soon and a sprite. Simple.
This morning I shared my test builds with friends seeking compatibility feedback for the .deb and snap installs. Those were both fine 💪 However, my friends have handhelds such as Sony PS Vita and Miyoo that use fake-08, an emulator for the PICO-8 game. I have spent some time today changing my simple text output functions to be compatible with fake-08. I am not done yet, but learning my stuff was busted early is good. Test early. Test often.
Something else I found useful last jam was making a short DevLog entry each day, it helped me see the progress that I actually made even when I initially felt that there were no significant changes. I recommend other participants take a few minutes to jot down a few words in your own DevLogs for this jam 👍️
Have a great jam, I am looking forward to seeing what you all create 🕹️