Spoons, Brakes

This feels a bit like cheating: but immediately after my last post on the topic, I built a paper prototype of the Spoon Theory game using index cards. I’m going to count that as hitting my goal to have a prototype by the end of the month.

For April and May, I want to return to Brakes Escape– adding polish, more variability in scenery and obstacles, and perhaps some power ups. By the end of June, I want to have it in the Google Play Store.

Brakes Escape update

I’ve done a round of post-jam tweaking on Brakes Escape. The game no longer simply stops generating new platforms (and walls!) once you hit a certain level, sound effects have been added, and some bugs have been fixed. To make things a little more difficult, I’ve introduced “solid” platforms that you can’t jump through, and made the rising water gradually increase in speed.

There are still some things I’m unsatisfied with:

  • the death animation is pretty janky
  • the water is portrayed as just a translucent blue sheet that rises. I’d like it to look more like water.
  • Some sound effects are still missing, and there’s no music
  • I think it needs more platform types (like conveyor belts) and some additional hazards (enemies?) to really be interesting and fun.

So, what’s next? I think I want to adapt the game for mobile, while working on the above items.

I do plan to update the itch.io web version at least once more, to generate a single-threaded version once Godot 4.3 is released (soon?).

Results are in– I was hoping for higher scores generally , but I’m pleased with getting #14 in the “fun” category.

I am working on an update that fixes the most glaring bugs, and adds audio, a score, and other refinements, which I hope to upload next week.

Godot Wild Jam 66 postmortem

Some lessons learned from my recent game jam experience:

  • Don’t wait until the very end of the jam to download the export templates bundle (see screenshot).
  • The last few hours of the jam are NOT the right time to learn shaders
  • The last few hours of the jam are NOT the right time to learn parallax backgrounds

Godot features I attempted to re-create (poorly)

  • Path2D (i was trying to move platforms back and forth by tracking points and managing velocity, before I figured out that Path2D could do this for me)
  • One-way collisions (I had used an Area2D and code to manage what collision layers a platform is, to create the effect where you could jump through a platform from below, while it acts as if it’s solid when you land on it. Turned out this was built in, and a matter of checking one goddamned checkbox.

Godot features and nodes that I had never used before (besides Path2D/PathFollow2D and one-way collisions)

  • ParallaxBackground and ParallaxLayer (though I messed this up somehow, my background that is supposed to repeat stops repeating at some point)
  • The ability to place limits on camera movement, which I’d previously done myself via code.

The only add-on I used was Godot State Charts, which continues to be the bees knees.

Brakes Escape, my submission to Godot Wild Jam #66, is live on itch.io. There are a couple of bugs, half-baked feaures , and other compromises made in the name of having something shippable by the deadline, but I think it’s a promising start to a more complete game.

Escape game

Previously, I posted two ideas for Godot Wild Jam 66. I ended up spending a few days on the first one and realized I didn’t like where it was going and I didn’t feel good about getting it into shape for the end of the jam. So, I switched gears to the second one (a variation on an idea I’d already been tinkering with).

It’s going better, but I’m not sure it’ll be shippable by the deadline (4pm tomorrow). Still, it’s nice to have some momentum. I’m really happy with how the player character moves, but the game definitely needs more.. game. We’ll see how for I get it tomorrow.