First game jam in GameMaker AND all by myself!!!!!

The game is up here on my itch.io! It's a zip file but I promise it's not a virus! What do I have to say about this short project in which I only used thirds of the 9 day jam?

 

The post mortem from this project is, don't expect to do stellar with your school work AND do a fun jam, one will have to suffer. It could be maddening, watching the 'ball' hit around and spear itself onto spikes while you can only watch. Still, that's what the original game 'brick breaker' is about, enjoying the bricks breaking...It's only fair when the spikes can be avoided due to SKILL (moving left and right) soshite, it's a bit cruel. 

I struggled with the level progression, it's very clunky. I struggled with the 'resetting' of the rooms when dead and yadda yadda, all the linear stuff drove me batshit. I wonder why.

I enjoyed making the animated bricks and designing the strange levels. I admit for time reasons (and sanity) I didn't play all 5 stages through without dying (those ceiling spikes are brutal...) before submitting to jam. I removed ceiling spikes before submitting and hope that makes it more fair a game.

I wanted to focus on the delight of hitting the different bricks, so focused a lot on getting the corresponding color coming out of the exploding animation, wayyy too much time spent on that but hey, it's worth it. 

The local Adelaide game dev scene (AGD) has often made me self conscious, a bit of imposters syndrome involved there because of my trauma, but I'm really pleased with the vibe I felt on their discord and although it was a jam of only 14 games, that pretty great turnout for Adelaide. It makes me proud to be a part of something local.

Anyways, my hands are aching from all the coding and writing I've done today, that is a good sign. It's a familiar ache that says, you've worked pretty damn hard. Invertebreaker(s) may not look like much, but I hope someone enjoys it! Cheers!

AGD Slam Jam 2 progress

 I decided to join in the AGD Slam Jam 2 a few days late since it's run by local Adelaide game devs. I was considering, heck I need to get back into GameMaker programming, since it's been a few months of avoiding it altogether.

I turned back to FriendlyCosmonauts tutorial for a 'brick break' style game. I had followed her tutorial word-for-word to make a pong game years back, it maybe must've been 2021 I think. I failed miserably at implementing any sort of charm into the game, as I barely knew if and switch statements etc.  

This time, I started with chat GPT since I wanted to see what it could teach me. For better or worse, it taught me nearly nothing, as much of the code was broken or outdated GML from 2012 and such, using view_xview and other unused functions. Well, I had to suck it up and code it myself. 

 I found it easier than I had anticipated, as many of my previous GML games were fairly broken. I kept it simple, using brick objects I painted on per level. The creature bounces off of the walls using a formula that reversed the hspeed and vspeed. If I just dumped it here well, that would ruin the mystery.

move_bounce_all(true) truly proved very useful, as all the bouncing is due to that, I think it's convincing enough for a pixel art game made entirely by me. I've even managed to spit out some dumpy music just for fun, but it'll probably end up more a maddening contribution than anything.

Anyways, I should probably get back to it. I have yet to make it progress to levels as it jumps to level 3, the smiley face one. All the somewhat linear things are the ones I find hardest to conceptualise, how one thing links up to another. Might ask my dad for help, or plan it out like real devs do. Once that's done, maybe I can design some powerups for speed, enlargement and something else fun.

Procrastination bloggin' over and out. I should be working on an essay or Japanese damngg.

Goodbye Mom. We Fed the Lobsters.

We held a memorial event for my mom two days ago. 

We spread her ashes via kayak on the spot on K.I where she wanted them to 'feed the lobsters'. 

I still miss you mom.