Starting Point

Context First

Hi everyone! I'm Carlos, and I've decided to start a devlog to track and share my progress on this game.

I love working on small games and participating in jams, but my last release on itch.io was six years ago! During these past years, I’ve really missed this aspect of game development, and now I’m eager to fix that. In this time, I’ve mostly been focused on parenting (my first son was born in 2019), working an 8-hour day job, and contributing to a larger game called Scrap Riders, which was developed using Unity, the engine I’m most experienced with. In fact, all my previous itch.io releases were made with Unity. However, I’ve always had this idea in the back of my mind to take a different approach. Maybe it’s because, in the past, I worked on browser games from scratch, and that was a really fun experience.

While I still like Unity (though less and less with every new update), I felt it often imposes a particular workflow. So, the obvious move for me was to keep using C#—a language I really enjoy—but build my game using a lightweight framework or library like FNA or MonoGame, which provide just the basics like rendering and input management. Later, I discovered Foster, a great library still in development. It’s a perfect fit because it gives me the chance to learn from the early stages of its development and, hopefully, contribute to it—if time and my knowledge allow.

Seven months ago, my daughter was born, and while on parental leave, I came up with a simple idea for a puzzle/platformer where the main character uses a balloon to solve puzzles. Despite having only small windows of time to work on it, I’ve tried to make a little progress each day. My main goals for the game are:

• A small, relatively short game (though we all know how initial ideas tend to grow!).
• Centered around a single mechanic involving the balloon: using it to push buttons, keeping it from popping, etc.
• 2D pixel art with a limited color palette to avoid getting overwhelmed with art.
• Scenes built using a tilemap.
• Following the ECS pattern (mainly for learning, as I could use a pattern I’m more familiar with to be faster).
• Doing as much as I can myself (collisions, particles, game editor).

I ended up with the following tech stack:

• Foster for rendering and input management It's a small 2D framework still in development, but that’s not an issue since I have no commercial goals or hard deadlines for this project.
• Ldtk for building the tilemap I’ve been meaning to test it for a while.
• Arch for ECS After some research, I found this library, which looked simple and effective for my needs.
• Dear ImGUI for the game editor (specifically the .NET version) I’ve played around with this tool before and love it, though I haven’t used it seriously until now.

Art

Initially, I made a quick mockup using the DawnBringer 32 palette:

However, I soon realized I was aiming for something more minimalistic and manageable. So, I switched to just four colors from the Retro Vibes palette:

That said, I’m not strict about sticking to just the palette—I’ll add more colors if needed.

Music & SFX

For the music, I’m thinking of going with retro or chiptune styles. Ideally, I’d like to compose it myself, but I don’t have much experience with composition, so it could take a while. If time gets tight, I might opt for some free assets that suit the game. As for sound effects, I plan to use libraries from websites like Freesound and tweak them in Audacity.

Let’s see how this project evolves! I’ll do my best to keep you posted.