My First Game Jam: Winter 2019

Gilloo · 2019-02-02T13:34:28Z

Hello there everyone ! My name Gilloo (pronounced like Jilloo, the oo is pronounced like boo~!). Welcome to the devlog I'll be continuously updating throughout "My First Game" Jam: Winter 2019. Since this is the first time I'll be making a game from scratch on my own (I have little to no gamedesign or coding experience) I'm really excited to share the whole process with the rest of this community ! I hope this will be a fun learning experience for all of us. So first off, some basic information on what my plans and visions are for this jam: - After some long debate and hesitation as well as initial tryouts before the jam, I will be using the Godot game engine for this project instead of Game Maker Studios 2 . More info on this open source engine can be found here: https://godotengine.org - Even though the engine supports both 3D and 2D I've decided to keep the size of this project small and realistic to begin with. After all we'd all like to at least be able to submit a working prototype haha :p. To achieve this I've set my sights on making a small but functional 2D platformer. I'd already feel more than proud if I could achieve one working level with a character able to jump, move left and right and so on. In other words, back to basics ! The biggest goal is I have is to learn the basics of coding and programming since I know almost nothing about it. Only kind of having completed the tutorial game in GMS2 in the past. As for more detailed descriptions for each aspect of the game. INSPIRATION: My choice to make a 2D platformer has been influenced by the fact that (like many other people) some of my earliest gaming experiences as a child growing up was playing platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 3, Alladin: the videogame,... on Sega Megadrive (or Genesis if you live in the US). Of course later on I'd also come in contact with the king of platforming himself Mario. Years later my love for these platformers would extend to other genres based on it or having their roots somewhere in the 2D platformer world. From 3D platfomers to Metroidvanias (another genre I absolutely adore, even if it has evolved into it's own thing starting from it's roots. Don't get me wrong though, I play pretty much any genre of game. Well, except for sports. :p). Although if I had to name one game, or rather series, that has been very influential and a big inspiration to try and make a platform game of my own is the sadly not that well known Klonoa. A series that started back on the PS1. I came into contact with it by pure coincidence a while ago and loved so much I've been tracking down all games in the series, playing them and really taking a head dive into the world of looking at games past their face value. A.k.a. learn about gamedesign and all it's aspects. STORY: For this first game jam this is not really a high concern (even if story is a big aspect of my inspiration Klonoa), this will be further expanded upon once I have decided on some character ideas and concepts that have been floating around in my head in the past 2 days before the start of the jam. I haven't put anything on paper down just yet. In other words, currently just ideas floating in the air. ART & CHARACTER(S): As mentioned in the story section, it's a work in progress that'll be expanded upon at a later time during the jam. But when I do get to expanding upon the vague ideas I currently have and put something on paper I'll be using digital art programs such CLIP STUDIO (more info: https://www.clipstudio.net/en ) and possibly ASPRITE (not sure on that yet though, https://www.aseprite.org ). DAY 1 So here it is ! The big day and official start of the jam ! As it is currently early afternoon in my little country called Belgium I decided to take the time during this break to write a little bit about my first few hours and experiences. I got up early this morning (7:15 am) and after a nice breakfast I was ready by 8 am to start learning the GDScript programming language used in Godot (although I know you can use C# I decided to learn and stick to the included GDScript). As my pre-jam orientation and research yesterday concluded in the evening, GDScript is mostly based on Python so I had followed some basics courses to make my introduction to the at first glance confusing Godot (I was seriously confused, which is what led to my initial hesitation between GMS2 and Godot) a little easier. And as I started out eagerly this morning I quickly felt that what my choice to learn some real basics of Python first (shout-out to the people in the Discord that helped me with this advice as well!) helped me tremendously. Suddenly this imposing language started to make a little more sense. Just a little bit but hey it's progress. Okay step 1, let's try and make a scene with an object in it that can become our player character. A little going through the official documentation, looking up some tutorials about the user interface,... later there it was. A player object with a real prototype aesthetic haha :p A real alpha looking placeholder sprite for what's to become the player character (isn't Godot the cutest mascot?) Alright ! On to the second step ! We got a scene, a sprite but eum...it doesn't move or anything. Time to change that ! And so I moved on to the part I fear the most, it's time to program a solid player character with some basic physics and movement (which in platformer terms means moving left, right and jumping). I open the script editor for my player character (for now still charmingly named "KinematicBody2D") and... O_o The window that greets me after doing what I just described above Okay... Stay calm... Let's go to the documentation (thanks for having that Godot!). I search and absorb the new knowledge frantically. And using the basic knowledge I have of GML from GameMaker Studios 2 I conclude that some of these scary looking things on the screen have the same function or mean the same thing as some functions in Game Maker. Time to make notes ! (both in the script and on paper !) # is the same as // for making notes in GML Some more researching on physics later I start messing around with a function included as a standard comment that probably suits my need. (I think...) I remove the # so it's an actual function instead of standard comment and get to work... I like to keep things logical and organised so I start with making some basic variables and constants, again using a combination of messing around and using the very limited knowledge I carried over from GML, documentation and if I'm really lost tutorials. With the variable motion and the constants gravity, speed and the future jump height set up I get to work on how to actually implement these into lines of code that do something . Time to repeat the same thinking process... Took me about an hour but I must say...looks pretty programmer-ish I run the game, press the left and right arrow keys (as "ui_right/left" refers to the right/left arrow keys respectively in Godot I learned) aaand...nothing. Okay I clearly did something wrong. Let's dive into the help documentation on physics. There I learn I need to put another line of code after my if and else (if) statements to actually tell the game what motion I want. So after adding move_and_slide(motion) as the last line of code followed by pass (which is like an ending } in many other languages as I understand it so far. As in this is the end of this executable group of code that belongs together.) I run the game again and... A quick gif of the result :D SUCCESS ! On to the last thing I decide to add before taking a break. Re-energized because of this small success I start thinking and researching about how I could add a jump mechanic. I come across the function if is_on_floor() so I decide this is probably the direction I should be looking into. And indeed the documentation of Godot confirms my suspicion. But it also says that you need a Vector2 for this, which I already added but since I didn't add a specific value to it Godot automatically considers everything a wall. Which, according to Godot help documentation is good to know if you're making a top down game. Of course I'm making a 2D platformer so this was a point where I got stuck. I decided to go back to a 2D platformer tutorial I had found on YouTube made by Heartbeast that had helped me in putting in collisions for the player and the environmental blocks. This tutorial has helped me lots during these very first hours with Godot already, as an absolute beginner it was exactly what I needed and I definitely recommend it to anyone using Godot (upon later visit of his channel as I'm writing I saw he also makes GMS2 tutorials so anyone using that engine needing help, Heartbeast's channel might likely be of help somehow). As well as of course reading the documentation available on the website as well as in the engine. I've had to use it as reference and honestly almost debugger a lot during these first few lines of code but my goal is to understand everything I learn from tutorials like these before I implement them into my own code. I decide to challenge myself to write the rest of the code using the guidelines he gives (as in which function to use and such) but I pause the video to try and write it myself instead of blindly copying whatever code he writes. So following what I learned I get to work, once after a few minutes(probably more like half an hour haha :p) I am done writing code I execute the game again to see if it actually works correctly. And to my surprise it does ! Well the gravity was a bit funky at first but after going back to the tutorial and following it's logic I quickly understood why the game was behaving the way it was. So after adding one small change to my code (again, thanks YouTube and Godot) I end up with a result that's better than I expected when I started out early in the morning. The final result script of my very basic playable character And that's where this really exciting experience has led me so far, I have a long way to go and it was very challenging already but thanks to this small success I feel even more motivated and I can't wait to share more of my progress with the rest of you here in the coming days ! DAY 2 So today has been a bit of weird one so far. My initial planning for the day was to focus on the character design for the player character as well as the simple music idea that has been floating in my head since the beginning of this jam. As such I started looking around for pixel art tutorials (since that is the most likely art style I'll be going for). After some digging and asking around I set my sights on Asesprite ( https://www.aseprite.org ). The full version is paid and since I'm trying to keep budget as low as possible to free (as I mentioned before, budget is also the reason I chose the Godot engine) I've been trying out one of their older versions that's available for free on their website (0.9.5). It's not as fancy or stable as the full version but I think for this project it'll do the job nicely. So far not much character designing has actually been done (heh... ^^") since I'm learning the interface and it's been years since I last did any kind of drawing. I've mostly been messing around and trying out sketching. To then quickly delete the sketch because I wasn't really feeling I had something nice on my hands to work with. Character/environment design and coding will definitely be the biggest challenges during this jam. On the musical side of things I've been using 2 programs as kind of a challenge for myself since I have much more of a background in music than classical hand drawn art of any kind. For this project I've decided to use Garageband and Bosca Ceoil ( https://boscaceoil.net ). For those of you unfamiliar with that name, it's a very easy to use and beginner friendly music making program with a big emphasis on 8-bit and 16-bit styled music. It was made by Terry Cavanagh, the indie developer that made titles such as VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. Despite it's simplicity it's a very powerful tool so for those of you that want a beginner friendly tool that easy to learn but still powerful. I definitely recommend it. So far I've made 2 pieces of music with both Garageband and Bosca Ceoil for this game jam. Both are still a work in progress and far from complete but I can feel I got something going here. (I would show you all a little sneak peak but both pieces need a little more tweaking before I feel confident in letting you hear them, be patient. ;D) Today has been a bit of a busy day and the creative engines in my head haven't been going all that well since life kind of happened and threw my entire planning overboard. ^^" But I am still proud with what little I achieved in the short time I actually had to work on the game and my confidence to be able to deliver something, no matter how big or small, at the end of this jam is still fiercely burning. It's been a joy so interacting with other jammers and reading' comments and experiences. Now excuse me as I disappear into my kitchen to make myself some dinner, a good jammer has to take care of him/herself after all. And I'll need all energy I can get to do some more coding and research. Especially since my next coding goal (and obstacle) will be trying to program some basic enemies with simple AI and interactions with the player. Expect a new update on how that goes somewhere tomorrow ! See you again soon and good luck to all of you ! Feel free to leave your thoughts, experiences, tips,... down below, I'd love to get some input on...well pretty much anything concerning making videogames.

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My First Game Jam: Winter 2019 community

#Devlog 2D platformer: Blobyssey (originally MusiKitty)

A topic by Gilloo created Feb 02, 2019 Views: 2,963 Replies: 32

Viewing posts 21 to 22 of 22 · Previous page · First page

GillooSubmitted5 years ago

FINAL DEVLOG + POST JAM THOUGHTS

So the jam finished this morning and I thought today would be the perfect time to give all of you a final update as I didn't post one for the past 2 days since I was busy working on restarting this jam project from zero after losing everything as I said in the previous devlog. For those of you who haven't yet, here's a link to my submitted game's page: https://just-gilloo.itch.io/blobyssey-a-brothers-quest-demo

I recommend checking out the page first (and try out the game for yourselves if you want) before continuing on reading this devlog as I'll be going over my work and thoughts as to give you all a small idea of how I ended up with such a drastically different project than what I ended up making and submitting.

As mentioned in the previous blog, after I lost everything on MusiKitty I went back to the drawing board and suddenly got an idea for an isometric obstacle course kind of game. But again I ran into an obstacle as implementing the tiles and player all went fine but coding the camera just didn't seem to work and I just kept running into gamebreaking bugs when manoeuvring through the virtual space I created. So since it was still pretty early in the day I decided to yet again go back to the drawing board and made the wiser decision to use the fundamental (but limited) knowledge I had gained about coding and designing 2D platformer to make a new project from scratch. I could've used the MusiKitty idea again for this and all the assets I had made but the whole corrupted file accident just put a halt on my motivation and ideas for that game. I started thinking about ideas to make a simple game. And so this idea suddenly took shape in my head in the shape of the lovely little blob I have now. And so it the same spirit I had when making MusiKitty initially (and because of the short time I had left) I kept the idea at it's plain simplest.

A platformer where you move from left to right and can jump and enemies with simple walking behaviour. And so after making a simple tileset I started designing some levels (as coding the player and standard enemies went pretty quickly thanks to the experience gained during this jam) in the spirit of many Mario Brother levels. Introducing a simple mechanic or idea in a safe environment first. In a way the player might even question why a certain enemy was placed the way it was as it does absolutely nothing to the player. But after the initial safe environment in which this is introduced I expanded upon it and tried to make it more interesting and dangerous (as far as the limited resources I could make and the time left would let me). So after simple tutorial levels and a bigger but still introduction level I decided to make on more enemy since I was nicely on schedule. I carried over the turret idea from the initial isometric project I wanted to make and implemented it here instead, using the enemy sprite I already had and tweaking it's design (which already were based on the player themselves due to, again, time constraints). By implementing said turret I also got to work and learn about new nodes in Godot that I wanted to try out while making MusiKitty but it just didn't seem to fit the game I thought at the time. I debated adding an attack for the player but it just didn't seem to fit the theme of the character and vague atmopheric ideas I had so I scrapped the idea. And I can say that even now after the jam I think it still fits the idea I had for this demo. After making all the levels on paper and in the map editor of Godot I went brainstorming on what the end goal (and by extension level transition trigger) should be and the design of a cute even smaller blob just popped up. I shortly debated on making said blob the main character's girlfriend (as I suddenly realized I had the perfect opportunity to fit with the optional theme of love here) but I suddenly loved the idea of a sibling in danger. And since I am all too familiar with doing anything for family or siblings I felt like that was the perfect kind of love for this game. Even if the the theme itself is not as outspoken as in other submissions I have come across (which is totally fine, it's everyone's different spin on making games that makes the variety real and fun). And so I went to work in even more hyper jam mode as I like to put it: I finalized the code to have something playable and fixed as many glitches as I could (as those of you who played or are going to play it, feel free to leave your feedback on glitches and whatnot that you encounter as I'm currently working on checking the code again to fix as many of them as possible). I made some simple sound effects (using this wonderfully handy program: https://www.bfxr.net/) for jumping and dying and finished some simple animations for the little blob as well as changed the player sprite a bit so it mirrors when moving left or right. And after a few test runs of all the levels I went to work on a titlescreen and endscreen for when the demo is finished. This went rather seamlessly as I had done almost the exact same thing for MusiKitty just a day or so earlier. I coded in the last transition from the last level to the end screen and just like that I had playable demo from beginning to end. It's a little glitchy (or really glitchy haha xD), it's short and it's pretty hard but I'm very proud of what I was able to accomplish despite losing all progress so close to the deadline. I think this achievement is a real testament to the true learning experience this has been surrounded by other lovely jammers who were there to help when my motivation was at an all-time low or when I needed help or advice. So thank you to all of you, if you were just a reader, fellow jammer or a random passerby. I appreciate this entire experience very much.

As far as our little blob is concerned I will definitely be expanding upon this concept in full game with more levels, enemies (and variations), collectables,... all of that 2D platformer goodness. I feel reinvigorated to build upon the foundation of this simple demo into a full experience. Updates on this will be posted on a devlog page on the Blobyssey demo page so go follow the link submitted at the beginning of this devlog entry to keep an eye out on future developments. This development and expansion might have to wait a bit though as I am considering joining a new game jam to get more experience (with maybe another engine) so that once I get back to Blobyssey and take it back to the concept table to flesh it out I have more experience and confidence to give it the full game experience I think it deserves and truly do justice to it.

And that's the end of my journey on this particular game jam ! My very first steps into game development and I loved every second of it. It's this and all of you that have truly make me feel this is what I want to pursue into the future, but as they say: one step at a time. Thank you all for sticking with me through to the end of this and I hope you all had as much fun as I had.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a ton of submitted games to go try out. ;)

See you all soon !

chuchelo5 years ago

That was too bad. I would like to suggest you to start using Git repository to store and track all your project files. This is not like to have a backup of the data, however it gives you a chance to move back and forward in time. If you are using a remote repository e. g.. like Giitlab then you could also consider the data has a backup copy.

Viewing posts 21 to 22 of 22 · Previous page · First page