itch.io

Hello, ludonauts!

Yesterday, I've published a new asset pack to illustrate the 🔴Patterned Enemy Routine, you can check it out using the embedded widget below:

https://itch.io/embed/4866670?border_width=0&bg_color=494d7e&fg_color=fbf5ef&link_color=8b6d9c&border_color=51516e

As I was designing the enemy using my Enemy Design System, I just realized: wait, this could be an amazing use case to help people get the best out of the Gameplay Library. So I decided to share it with y'all as an YouTube video. Check it out:

The 🔴Patterned Enemy Routine tutorial is baking already, so stay tunned.

That said, thank you for your support. Ludonaut tapping out!

— Henrique Campos

Can you believe Galaga was the first thing I reeearched for this? I even though "Nah, I don't think my audience would expect this from Patterned Enemy Routine".

I will see if I can make a quick alternative demo this week and push an update. Thank you for the feedback, Pegasus!

Hey, brother! Great to see you around. Thank you for the feedback! ✌️👨‍🚀

Hey! Great to see you around~

Hi, I am curious to know what are you guys playing this week.

This week I am playing Flinthook by Tribute Games. It has been on my backlog for quite a while and I wonder what I can learn from it.

If I remember correctly, Flinthook, as many roguelites, is heavy on the 🟢Adventure and 🔵Strategy dimensions on top of common Run'n'Gun mechanics on 🔴Action dimension.

I think the most attractive gameplay element in Flinthook is the 🟢Metaprogression which is all over the place. Since on each run we can build a new combination of perks, most of the game is about unlocking new perks and experimenting which one fits better our playstyle.

What about you? What are you going to play thin week and how is its gameplay?

This is the second iteration of our Weekly Loadout program. As our continued effort to help you design and build your dream game, we are offering weekly asset packs that you can use to build and improve your gameplay. This week, you can mix the following assets to create a jump'n'shoot gameplay:

To grab your Weekly Loadout use the link below. Only owners of the Ludonauts Gameplay Library can access the Weekly Loadout.

Access the Weekly Loadout

With these assets you will have seven game design patterns in your toolkit to build with jump'n'shoot gameplay:

🔴Precision Platformer for the snappy platformer movement
🔴Jump Cutoff to use as both a locomotion and an aiming mechanic
🔴Facing-Locked Shooting to give the player a shooting mechanism
🔴Instant Fire Attack so the player shoots the weapon without charging it
🔴Unrestricted Primary Fire to allow the player to shoot infinite bullets
🔵Depletable Health Pool to test the player's survival skills
🔴Environment Hazards to test the player's navigation skills

Don't forget to share your creations here on the community!

That said, thank you for your support. Ludonaut tapping out!

— Henrique Campos

Hey, zkmark

The tutorial is up, check it out:

➡️Tutorial: Top-down Shooter in Godot 4

Hi, futuretrev

The Project Files were hidden for some reason. Thanks for the heads-up.

Please, check it out again and let me know if the problem persists.

Hi, zkmark.

You can bring the Weapon2D (and its dependencies) to the Input-Aligned Movement project and add it to the Player scene.

Use a RemoteTransform2D as a child of the CharacterBody2D pointing to the Weapon2D.

You can essentially mirror the same structure from the Player scene in the Ability Loadout Switching project, but using the InputAlignedCharacterBody2D instead.

I will write down a tutorial for you this week and will come back here with the link. Stay tuned.

Hi, zkmark!

Thank you for the heads-up. Does this error shows up in the Project Files or the Asset Pack downloadable .zip?

Regarding documentation. We are working on it this week! Could you help us design it? What would you like to have in order to help you build your game with our assets?

✍️ taking note of that!

Hi! I think it already supports those. You can give it a try in the demo. See:

Hello, good morning!

Let me see if I can clarify the whole workflow. By the way, thank you for raising up these questions. I'll certainly add them to the FAQ to ensure other customers also find the answers.

The cookbook in itself is an HTML page built with and hosted on Notion. When you purchase the book here on itch.io or on Ko-fi, you are redirected to the this page.

Using these checkout platforms (itch.io and Ko-fi), you claim the product, bonding it to your account.

Here on itch,io, you can access this link to see all the products you own on the platform:

https://itch.io/my-purchases

Once you open this page, you'll see all the products associated with your account on itch.io. Look for the Godot Platformer Essentials Cookbook and click on Download. You'll be redirected to the cookbook's page on Notion.

From there, I suggest you to bookmark the page, so you don't have to do this process again.

Hi, Ayampixel.

We use Notion to distribute the book's content. This means it is an HTML page hosted on Notion servers using our custom domain.

You can always access the page here on itch.io again, after purchasing you get an unique download page bond to your itch.io user, from which you can access the content again.

I recommend you to either duplicate it to your own Notion account, this will make it so it is always available for you and you will be able to edit it however you like (highlighting, adding comments, and even uploading your project files).

An alternative is to simply bookmark the page to your browser so you can access it later.

Hi, Ayampixel.

This is a known issue, the problem ks with Brazilian users of PayPal (me included).

You can get the same book on my Ko-fi page, which usually works better:

https://ko-fi.com/s/8df29350d8

Thank you! Glad you liked, brother!

Hey Pegasus! Great to have you around. It's always a good surprise to be notified that you left a comment. Thank you!

I'm taking notes of your feedback; there are a lot of valuable insights I can take from it.

Something that sparked in my mind while reading your comment is that it can be summarized into one major issue:

The strategy and adventure elements are conflicting with the action elements and I'd rather focus on action.

I think you already read about that "Primary Colors of Game Design" framework I use in my game design process, but just to clarify:

• Action: the elements that test your reaction time to game events (movement and combat in Milkyway Mailing Inc.)
• Adventure: the elements that test your ability to reveal and connect information from the game world (the story, plot, and world-building in Milkyway Mailing Inc., for example, the dialogues) 
• Strategy: the elements that test your ability to manage resources (health points, energy points, positioning, in near future, the skills and their effects).

From what you said, these elements are clashing: Dialogues appearing while I you were rather be focusing on moving and fighting, the energy preventing you from performing high leverage moves like dashing and teleporting, which are part of the movement system.

You even point out that, as it is, you'd rather have the previous movement system, with an elongated drag, low friction, and high inertia.

Would it be accurate to say that if the movement system gets more responsive and allows you to respond faster to the game events, you'd have a better experience? Or is it a personal preference for the "floaty" movement we had previously?

Liked it!

I think it lacked some incentives to urge the bouncing between one NPC and another. I think this game has a goo potential if the NPCs actively tried to kill the player.

Liked it!

I think it lacked some incentives to urge the bouncing between one NPC and another. I think this game has a goo potential if the NPCs actively tried to kill the player.

Loved the background story

Scored 66 so far!

THank you for asking!

The Game Development Patterns with Godot 4 book, published by Packt Publishing, is a book that explains how to use the design patterns of the software development industry to develop games. We are talking about applying Uncle Bob's design patterns, such as Singleton, Command, and Strategy.

These are all very useful when you are building scalable and reusable code bases.

In the book, we work on a platformer game project, improving its code base by implementing a fictional game designer requests.

The Platformer Essentials Cookbook teaches how to implement common features found in platformer games using Godot Engine.

The project used in the Game Development Patterns book builds on top of a project that implements features presented in the Platformer Essentials Cookbook.

The major overlap is that for some features in the Platformer Essentials Cookbook we use some design patterns, but we don't go in depth on them, as the focus is on the actual feature, while the Game Development Patterns explains the rationale behind the pattern and how it helps make the code scalable for bigger projects.

So while the Platformer Essentials Cookbook is more beginner-oriented, the Game Development Patterns is more intermediate-oriented.

Hello!

I create space fantasy games, and I'm currently working on my first commercial release, Milkyway Mailing Inc., From my perspective, there's no way this game will be successful if I don't correct and polish it with actual players.

Image 1: The Battle Against Aries prototype banner. Click to visit the prototype

So I build an initial prototype, which I called Battle Against Aries, to collect feedback on the game's core drivers:

• The aesthetics: I'm the artist behind the visuals and I can't hire anyone, I need to validate if my illustrations are good enough
• The boss battles: the game revolves around defeating the 13 zodiac signs (yeah 13) and unlock their abilities, so boss fighting is a major feature that needs to be in tune
• The twin-stick control: well...this is how players interact with the game world, so this must also feel great to players.

I created a post on the game community so you can vote up/down for each of these topics on whether you would buy the game as they are, or if they would be a major decision factor for not buying the game. You can also leave a reply to let me know more about your voting.

You can play the prototype using the link below:

Play the Battle Against Aries prototype

And please, leave your feedback in the respective community post:

Leave your feedback

Thank you very much!

— Henrique Campos

3. The Twin-stick Controls

Are they responsive? Is the spaceship moving fluidly? Can you aim accurately? Are the keyboard, mouse, joystick, and controller good?

Upvote this comment if you approve the controls as they are.
Downvote the comment if the controls would lead you to leave a bad review of the game.

Add any insights or suggestions by replying to this comment. E.g. if you upvote it but would like to suggest some tweaks, let us know.

2. The Boss Battle

Is Aries conveying the idea of a character that behaves impulsively and explosively? Are the patterns readable and fair? How's the level of difficulty?

Upvote this comment if you approve the boss's behavior as it is.
Downvote the comment if the boss's behavior would lead you to leave a bad review of the game.

Add any insights or suggestions by replying to this comment. E.g. if you upvote it but would like to suggest some tweaks, let us know.

1. The Aesthetics

What do you think about the color palette? Are the UI and game elements readable? Does it match the space-fantasy theme well? What do you think about making zodiac sign game characters reflect their personality traits? Did you like the overall world-building?

Upvote this comment if you approve the aesthetics as they are.
Downvote the comment if the aesthetics would lead you to leave a bad review of the game.

Add any insights or suggestions by replying to this comment. E.g. if you upvote it but would like to suggest some tweaks, let us know.

Please use the replies below to provide feedback regarding the Battle Against Aries prototype. We've selected three major questions we wanted to answer with this prototype.

Use the vote system to give us a quantitative answer, and use the replies to give us a qualitative answer. Read the questions and answer accordingly. This is our way to gauge if we are making a game you'd love playing!

The game controller was made during the prototype development.

Though, the other systems (dialogue, quest, etc.) are indeed from the original game.

Regarding AI translation, I used a quick system I have set up with Notion, as seen in the video, I translate things real quick. I agree this is a bit overkill for a jam entry, though. To the point it could be ignored I guess.

But anyway, as I said in another reply: I understand you feel this way. I saw a great opportunity with many coincidences in this jam, specially the fact I made the prototype within its duration and the ram mascot.

You can disqualify my entry if you feel I was dishonest in anyway. But may I ask you to leave your feedback on my prototype when you finish up the jam? I will be happy to watch you play it.

See, I found this jam and it immediately triggered my attention, the mascot (a ram, my boss is also a ram), the projectile criterea (my prototype is a twin stick shooter and the boss spills explosive bullets), my game is made with Godot, and I made the prototype exactly during the jam duration.

It seemed like a great opportunity to both add a cool polished entry to the jam and help me get some feedback on the prototype.

I understand this might feel "mischievous", but I just saw a nice opportunity here with many coincidences.

If you want to disqualify my entry just because you feel I'm trying to take advantage of you, just know that's not the case.

If anything, leave your feedback on my prototype, even if you don't approve it as an entry here. It will be great to watch you play it.

Yes, these comments are mine, because I set the page up before working on the prototype. I created the prototype to answer these questions.

Check the Dropbox folder I shared, the prototype development started Monday April 13rd.

I made the game  exactly during the game jam duration, and I can prove that.

The comments were there because I had the page prepared before finishing the game.

Here's the Dropbox folder if you want to verify: Battle Against Aries Dropbox Folder.

Here's a livestream finishing the prototype April's 17th: 

 That said, could you answer the post question on whether AI generated translation  is accepted?

Hi, I have plenty of systems on place for my games in Godot Engine, and I have some assets that may fit perfectly the theme (at least Deep).

I'm thinking about creating a new prototype to submit to this jam using these systems and assets. How open are you to that?

Hi, I made a prototype that fits perfectly this jam. Though, I used Notion's AI to translate the dialogues to 8 languages. The original dialogues (English and Portuguese) were handcrafted though.

Am I safe?

Like in Mario Bros small Mario and big Mario?

Yep!

I already have some plans for:

• Double jump
• Wall slide and wall jump
• Dash and Air dash
• Coyote time
• Jump buffer

Your suggestion is something like those Mega Man slides?

Imagine you were an RPG character. In this game, the core resource is money. You studio's HP is the amount of available cash, your MP is how much money you spend on special actions. The damage points is the amount of money you make with sales, so on...you have four core skills from which you specialize to create your build:

• Operations: the "warriors". People who specialize in getting in front of the game development battle. They are responsible for actually creating the product itself. Skills like programming, illustration, animation, music composition, and game development in general anything related to the production of the final product fall under this skill brach.
• Marketing: the "rogues". People who specialize in understanding the battlefield and finding the right opportunities to strike. They have high levels of speech and direct damage. Skills like designing, communication, persuasion, leading, influence, networking, and more fall in this skill branch.
• Sales: the "mages". People who specialize in understanding the specifics of interpesonal dynamics and choose the right spell to deal huge damage. They are versatile and always have a spell to crowd control, and burst AoE damage. Skills like sales, copywriting, empathy, customer support, nurturing, community management, interpersonal and relationship skills in general fall in this skill branch.
• Finances: the "clerics". People who specialize in finding the optimal numbers to ensure positive resource flow, ensuring all members stay alive and can perform their role at their best possible version. They are responsible for maintaining positive resourceflow(usually cash) to the group, managing when how much goes where. Skills like accounting, bookkeeping, business development, production engineering, finances, budgeting, financial leveraging, financial planning, rolling over debts, and others fall under this skill branch.

For example, I'm a mix of warrior and cleric. Ironically, my favorite classes are paladins and similar "battle cleric" in RPGs.

But, honestly, I'm working hard to develop some damage dealing skills, I started exploring the rogue branch lately, and I gotta say it really helps farming, especially due to some luring skills where you can pull mobs. But I feel that without a good mage, you just can't deal enough damage and end up losing huge opportunities.

A good mage can cast some high level landing pages if he invests on copywriting. Some AoE skills like promotional sales can help too.

What about you, how are you playing this game? Any new meta to share?

Hello, ludonauts.

It's finally time, your very own handheld replicator arrived! Our team is working on packaging it inside a safety container to prevent any accidents, but the test chamber is a safe space to try your handheld replicator.

The Research & Development team worked hard to prepare a sequence of challenges to help you understand your Handheld Replicator capabilities and how to manage it properly.

Note that once you have access to it, the power you'll have in your hands is unlimited. You will be able to create anything, anywhere, any time, with great powers come great responsibilities. That said, use under your own risk. Add it to your inventory using the portal below:

https://itch.io/embed/4323466?border_width=0&bg_color=494d7e&fg_color=fbf5ef&link_color=8b6d9c&border_color=494d7e

Our budget is low, and...I didn't manage to fund  the Training Program (mini course) for this equipment yet. We are running a funding sales to help get pay our instructors in their native currency so they can dedicate time to prepare the Training Program, take the chance to acquire more training programs (courses & books) and other equipments too (assets):

Click the image or here to visit the funding sales.

That said, enjoy your time in the test chamber and don't forget to report any issues in our Bugs & Issues tracker so our team can work on them. Ludonaut Zer0 tapping out!

— Ludonaut Zer0, aka Henrique Campos

Ha! Glad to have you around brother. You have no idea how happy I get when you comment my stuff. 😄

Thank you!