A jam of my own

One thing I’ve learned about myself after participating in a couple of game jams: I like having deadlines.

So, I’m going to try setting a deadline for a personal project that I’ve been meaning to make progress on: a game about spoon theory. I want to have something playable (not necessarily done) by the end of March.

My aim here is:

  • a fun game
  • that leaves the player with increased empathy for/ understanding of folks who need to consciously manage their energy/stamina

… with a bonus goal of the game being somewhat relaxing and not too taxing. The game should be a good stim. It should restore spoons, rather than take them away.

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?).

Currently listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚

Surprised that, for a published-this-month technical book, Thrift Books had more inventory on hand and a better price than Amazon.

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.

“Flash of light-mode content” is the new flash of unstyled content.

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.

I’m the PTA volunteer keeping an eye on our elementary school’s “tech club” again this session, and this time they’re going to be programming drones with Python.

I’m… a little jealous?

I’ve been pretty lazy about static typing in GDScript - but it’s pretty cool to see that there are performance benefits.

Want to read: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚

The first book was great, and I’m excited to read what happens next. Maybe I’ll re-read the first one before May.

Nah I’m good Samsung

GWJ ideas

Current thinking for the jam, either:

  • starting over from scratch on the NS-Tower-inspired game I’ve tinkered with on and off (see a GIF of it here), and adding something to escape from, like a rising water level.
  • a horizontal - scrolling space shooter where you can only move in short bursts, which I’m calling “we only have hyperdrive”

Godot Wild Jam #66

I’m signed up for Godot Wild Jam #66, with a theme of “Escape”– which is pretty straightforward, as far as game jam themes go. I do think it’s quite cool that GWJ has accessibility as a rating category, and I’m going to try to see how much of the accessibility guidelines I can meet.

The jam goes for nine days. My current thinking on timing is: have something basically working by early next week, then use the rest of the time to polish the graphics, UI, and audio.

This post from @manton prompted me to finally try out Bluesky– so far, it feels kind of like the uncanny valley version of Twitter? I’ll keep poking around. I’ve turned on cross-posting from micro.blog.

Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman 📚

(actually, re-listening to Act I of the Audible adaptation of The Sandman, but I’m in the section that corresponds to The Dolls House)

Finished reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew 📚

#screenshotsaturday

My son and I are still making tweaks to the roguelike that resulted from following @selinadev@indiepocalypse.social’s tutorial: a new spell, visual effects, weapons, and new enemies. I enjoy the collaboration, so we’ll probably keep it going for a while.

The most notable new feature is a minimap! It still needs work, but I’m happy that I was able to get it working. This is my first time writing Godot code that generates a graphic from scratch. Every pixel in the minimap represents one tile in the current dungeon. Right now, it draws the entire graphic (walks the entire array of tiles) on every turn, which seems excessive and dumb. On the other hand, it’s performing OK, so “fixing” that might be a premature optimization.

In theory, the next Godot Wild Jam starts next Friday, I was thinking I might give that a try.

The lyrics to “Parents Just Don’t Understand” aren’t as lighthearted as I remember.