My new game's adventure mode and the Steam spring sale!
Hello! I've been starting to put together my new game's action-adventure mode in these past two weeks, and I'm starting to realize that it's a lot of work.
Rocks, breakable walls, conveyor belts and jump pads
I want the player to get stronger as they play through adventure mode, so I've been giving them lots of upgrades to play with. Some of them are simple things like upgrading your maximum health and bomb capacity, but I want to give people new ways of interacting with the world too. So in addition to the jumps and bombs and upgraded hammer that I showed off in the previous newsletter, I've added rocks that you can launch with an upgraded hammer, walls that you can destroy with bombs or an upgraded hammer, conveyor belts that push you around, and jump pads that can launch you over gaps or walls. They're fun to mess around with!
I need to draw sprites for all of these things, which is doing a great job of reminding me that I'm much slower a drawing sprites than I am at programming. The conveyor belts and jump pads are still using placeholder Chessplosion sprites, but the rocks and cracked walls have new sprites. It took me a few tries to get the rocks looking how I wanted them to, but I love the final result. It's so satisfyingly chunky, I wanna reach out and touch it...
The rest of adventure mode
There's so much code that goes into making an action-adventure game, and I've done a lot of it this week. Things like saving and loading, increasing the size of levels, letting you move between levels, money, making enemies drop items when you defeat them, and getting the HUD working.
The HUD was a bit of a pain, because I would like the game to support 2-4 player co-op. I would like local co-op to be a fun experience, so I really don't want a map on the pause screen. If I was player 2 and my player 1 friend kept pausing the game every ten seconds to look a the map, I'd get real mad.
So if the game ends up having a map at all, it will have to be a minimap on the HUD. I tried a bunch of different ways to fit everyone's health and bomb count on the screen, along with your current money and a minimap, and this layout is the best one I could come up with:
There's always the chance that I'll end up having no map at all (just like Dark Souls!) but it's nice to have a plan just in case I end up needing one.
I am just one person
That's my current progress so far. Lots of new code but not much new art or content. Honestly, I've recently been pushing myself a bit too hard to try and get my pixel art and worldbuilding up to professional levels recently and it's been really tiring me out, to the point that it's a bit too much for me to handle.
I am, after all, just one person. Solo-developed videogames usually let you see the author's strengths and weaknesses and priorities, and I think that's charming. I love looking at Ryukishi07's character art and filtered photo backgrounds, or listening to the stock music and sound effects in Like Dreamer, or playing RPGMaker games that have completely wild gameplay systems but stock assets all over the place and next to no dialogue.
So I think I'm going to take that attitude into my own games and try to embrace my strengths and weaknesses a bit more, instead of stressing myself out and slowing myself down by trying to be perfect at everything right away. I want to improve, but I should be happy to do it at my own pace and let my games be a reflection of my current self in the meantime. This game will still be cool even if a few of the sprites aren't perfect or if it doesn't have a giant 30-hour world full of perfectly-designed NPCs to talk to. I hope you end up finding the game charming, weaknesses and all!
It's the Steam sale!!
The Steam and itch spring sales just started, and you can save 30% on Ducky's Delivery Service (Steam/itch) and 50% on Chessplosion (Steam/itch)! So if you know anyone who wants those games, feel free to let them know about it!
Books and things
I've been having a great time outside of work, but unfortunately I haven't played any games other than my own. I'm going to go check out the Steam and itch sales right after I finish writing this newsletter issue!
So I don't have any games to recommend this time. But I had a great time reading the book Bullshit Jobs and the essay good writers are perverts, and watching the YouTube video How to Give Yourself a Name. Maybe you'll like some of those things too.
Anyway, it's time for me to go buy some new games in the sale. Have a great couple of weeks, and I'll see you next time!