Taking a Break - Game Jam Time

So I went on vacation to NYC - it was great. Good time to reflect on things and enjoy some of life itself. 

While I know exactly the direction I need to take when I get back, I have been wanting for a while to do some other small project just to get a win under my belt and have some fun. And so I decided to prepare in the Game Off jam on itch.io (https://itch.io/jam/game-off-2024). I only have about a week - but that's fine with me. I need to finish FTC anyway so I can't really put aside too much time.

So yeah - a week to make a game. Cool! I've made some pretty good progress already; I decided to make a game about riddles with a little light top down combat. You have to fight off enemies, and in between waves you try to guess the riddles on your magical sword. If you get them right, you will unlock a power. That's it!

It's fun to do something that isn't really that ambitious. I keep reminding myself when I'm overthinking things - this doesn't have to be perfect. Or good even. I'm just having fun here. So I'm doing the best I can, and also just taking it easy about it.

I'll be sure to share more images / GIFS in future posts.  

Optimizations.

 Super tired. Going to nap. But working on optimizations.

Obviously - need to break the habit of instantiating and destroying things. 

Fixin' Bugs

 Just fixed a couple easy bugs. Work was long today. Still gotta show up!

Deciding What's Next

I've been a little distracted with personal life issues lately. However, I'm back at it. I will be headed to NY on vacation soon, but in the next couple of days I have plenty of time to get work done on the game.

After a lot of playtesting and people's opinions being shared, I've decided to iterate further on the battle mechanics. I would love to move forward and keep trying to wrap the project up, but the combat really isn't much right now. It's a great start, really - but it's just not very unique or diverse.

I need to increase the tactical options available to the player, and I need to flesh out the vice system. Fortunately I had a few people say that idea was unique, although it doesn't really do much at the moment. So - the idea is to make the vice abilities into actions the player can activate. They will be specific, unique mechanics like:

• Smite for Honorable dudes. It will be a one hit kill if it hits, but take up the whole turn.
• Free attacks when allies attack an adjacent target for Greedy dudes. No AP cost to activate (?)
• Counterattack when dodging for Glorious dudes. No AP cost (?)

So these will be better because they're not just some arbitrary buff - they are a thing the player can chose when to and when not to utilize. It will also just look cooler seeing like "SMITE!" popup as the enemy dies in a single strike. Or like the free attacks. These are just more substantial, noticeable, and unique compared to some random +10% this or that.

Anyway I'm done for the day. Later!