itch.io

As weird as it may sound, I listen to tracks I created for my existing projects.  For some reason, it gives me a stronger motivation to work on my own projects by listening to stuff I have already created.

Mittens & Paws

Isekai Budget: The Demo has received a nice update which improves the overall quality of gameplay, new music, WASD support, weapons and an additional dungeon.
In addition, The main game has been updated with various improvement and fixes.

Okay, this sounds awesome!  I like that you included options such as QB64 Phoenix and Free BASIC!

Thank you!  There was definitely some inspiration from the original DOS/PC-88 version of the game (Given there was a time limit on making this game, having it helped the process).

I noticed the same problem.  I got to watch the exact same check happen a dozen times with the exact same delays in movement cycling between a rook and a king.  Otherwise, this looks great.

A big thanks to everything who voted, rated, commented and told me how I screwed up!  XD  I'm working on a update that I will put up as a separate submission.  Expect palette updates, minor layout updates, a few small bug fixes and most of the suggestions that were posted below.

Oh wow, this had come and gone so fast I never even had a chance to notice this.  Will this be run again, down the road?

Hey ASWhalerGames!

You did a vid on my demo.  The demo has since been fixed so you won't have to deal with the save issue or the bug that happened.  There is also the full version of game, plues a small tetris clone and my GB JAM 11 submission; Nadine's Fleet.

https://kurogamedev.itch.io

https://kurogamedev.itch.io

There are only a few games at this point, but all of them are html5, have no serious overhead requirements (Does not require webGL, for instance) and require very little bandwidth to play (Biggest game is only around 135kb).

Hello.  Thanks again for the comments, everyone.  I have been looking at the suggestions that have been presented and I think there will be a few updates to the game once the jam is over.  Most of my work (lately) has been on the custom resource editor I used to help make this game.  I noted a few weaknesses when trying to work with a greyscale palette, so I have been making some updates and improvements to it before anything else.  

I would also like to an include an option to select from a number of pre-made palettes in the options page.  Depending on your hardware performance, it may take a second or so to update the game since every pre-rendered sprite sheet has to be re-drawn with the updated palettes.

Looking very nice!  It plays fine and the music works well.

A very neat concept.  Nicely done.

Interesting advice.  There was some stuff there I had not considered (Especially with the time constraints).  Something to look at when I re-visit this following the jam.

Thanks!

Thank you to everyone who has left feedback and ratings.  I appreciate the details when people tell me what is good and what can be improved.

Thank you.  We'll have to see how things go.  What's more important is people are playing it, rather than if I win. :)

Project: https://kurogamedev.itch.io/nadines-fleet

15 levels, 10 music tracks, sound effects, lots of different enemies and patterns, plenty of upgrades and weapons to choose from.  All done in 10 days for GBJAM 11.

I have to disagree.  Depending on which OS and system I am on at the time, there are a lot of browser games on here I cannot play.  Those that cannot be played without webgl2 support, for instance, are completley inaccessible on one of my setups.  With that system, I would say I can play 1 of out every 3 or 4.

I use my custom resource editor and code around it to create my games.  Probably sounds like a hassle, but I can output games that don't require 40+ GB to play.  So far, all the games I have posted on here are small enough to fit on a floppy disk from the 80's.

https://kurogamedev.itch.io/nadines-fleet

Nadine's Fleet.  Part of GBJAM 11.  15 stages, 10 music tracks, several upgrades, weapons and lots of different enemies and patterns.  Like usual, made from scratch using my own custom editors and resource files.

All the games in my profile have mobile controls.  You'll need to hold the mobile device horinzontally for them to appear.

https://kurogamedev.itch.io/nadines-fleet

I am a recent addition to itch, let alone this is the first jam I ever tried to participate in.
For me, it was the challenge. I managed to build an RPG (from scratch) in 128kb or less, so trying to do one in 10 days (in vanilla js with my own resource editor) was pushing my efforts to the limit (I have never made 8 music tracks in a single day, before), but I got it done.

https://kurogamedev.itch.io/nadines-fleet

15 stages, 10 music tracks, even I have trouble putting this game down once I get into playing it.  It uses the same editor my rpg does and works out to around 130kb, complete (Though I made no effort to compress the code like I did with the RPG).

https://isekaigamedev.itch.io/isekai-budget 

Well, if you are looking for another round of abuse that makes your first play-through look like easy mode, in comparison...  The full version of my rpg is up.

https://isekaigamedev.itch.io/isekai-budget

Excellent!  Looking forward to hearing how it goes!

Alright, I 'should' have the save files problem fixed.  I moved the method form cookies to local storage, made saves, re-uploaded the project 5 times and the save files were still there.  

Thank you for the feedback.  It's always appreciated.  

Yeah, I would like to know why the disappearing save games happens, too.  I wonder if itch has an issue with using cookies for save games.  I wonder if there is something else I should use in it's place?  Perhaps using local storage would work better?  I have had no problems with this method of handling the save files on my domain.

... Aaaand I just found a dumb bug.  Somehow the Axe weapon's name got replaced with a bunch of candy icons.  Oh well.  Guess 1.02 will have to show up, soon enough.

... Aaaand for something else fun, it looks like the final leg of the game where you auto-warp to the shrine is broken.  Until I patch the update, it appears as though I have a possible variable conflict with itch (which seems odd, since all the game functions are internal).  The issue does not on both my local end and on my domain, only here.  I did a rename and when I post an update, I'll try it out and see if it works. 

(Update: Nope, it was not a problem with itch, but a problem with Chrome browsers.  I identified the problem moved some stuff around and now it's fine)

Greetings.
https://isekaigamedev.itch.io/isekai-budget-the-demo

This is an HTML5 game I built from scratch, including the resource editors I used for the maps, objects, graphics, music, etc.  This project doubled as a challenge : Complete an RPG within a total filesize of 128kb or less.  The final game is something like 50 bytes shy of target and the demo is around 105 kb (or so).  The demo serves as a sidequest to the main game, so there is little overlap between the demo and the final version (which given the positive reactions I have seen to it , I'll put it out, soon enough).

I recently updated the game; it fixed a (potentially) killer glitch when opening a treasure chests, plus updated a few little errors along the way. I had to do a bit of an overhaul to the game; It works fine as a standalone on my domain, but itch had some issues with it, namely the charset format I was using, so I had to do a little work to fix the problem.

I don't know if you will be able to continue the game, though.  When I did the update, I lost the save files on my end.  It was kinda screwy when I did it, so I can only hope that a) others don't lose their files and b) that will never attempt to do an update that dumb again and just stick with updating the filename as-is (While I have some years of making HTML5 games, I am a total newb to posting them anywhere outside my own domain).

THANK YOU for finding that bug.  It got past me.  What happens is most text boxes in the game have dialogue ID numbers and the one for saying "You're carrying too much stuff!" was not only the wrong number, but it was well beyond the range of the dialogue, causing the game to freeze.  It did not just affect the chest in the lava caves, but all chests in the game, should you have full inventory.

It should be good, now!  

Typically, I use vanilla JS for my projects, but I have my own resource editor for my game projects.  I can import the custom binary file and use JS itself to generate the resources I need for the game, then I just need to add the game code and it's all good to go.  

The editor can handle a number of game details and if I don't want to include a section for a project, I can mute out it's inclusion on the editor-side.

When I built my rpg, I considered a number of things.

I set targets.

• I was chatting with someone on Discord about game making and what I could make that wasn't just some arcade knockoff, like another pacman wanna-be or snake game.  I was told I should make a role-playing game, but make it so it has a very small filesize.  Since I already had my resource editor, I set out to see what I could do to make a game in 64kb.
• I wanted to tackle a late-80s style RPG where you played a single character (could choose from a couple different classes, each with their advantages and drawbacks), a fairly straightforward, but non-linear quest (gather puzzle pieces to unlock the final area), have a battle system for 1-on-1 fights and include the list of usual details for such a game (inventory, enemies, enemy group setups, maps, map objects, flags and switches, music and sound effects, graphics, the whole lineup of stuff)

Align your goals with your targets.

• Okay, so I know my game is going to be 64kb, which means it's going to be awfully damn small game.   I had just come off a 192 x 144 pacman clone (At the time) with a working palette, tiles, sprites, maps, text and music editor, so I could start working on the resources, immediately. The editor would also need to be expanded on to handle all the other data I want to include so it does not bloat the source code end of things.
• Javascript is pretty much all I know for a language that can make a game do what I want it to do.  That means, I am using a language that is quite wordy.  I setup a shortcut system where I could use three-or-four letter functions to replace commands ( FL(a) replaces Math.floor(a), for example; it adds up after a while).  It is not ideal for efficiency, since a line of code is marginally faster to process than calling on a function to do the same job, but since I am not trying to do a raycaster game (which I have played with in JS), this will be fine, since this is more about saving bytes.
• I never actually achieved a target of 64kb, though...  It turns out 64kb was laughably unrealistic.  I had the maps layed out, three tile sheets.  There was no music, dialogue was non-existent and the combat system was fairly light and missing animations.  I upped my target to 128kb.

Just make it.

• With a loose idea of what the story and progression in the game will be, I got started on the project.

• I built around 80 or so palettes (2, 4 and 8-color) and three tileset pages, each 128x128 for my game to convert to sprites and background tiles when it loads. Next I tackled the maps.  I did not like how my maps felt inefficient with filesize, so I did a little trick to squeeze 2 map tile values into each byte, cutting the filesize requires by half (My main overworld map is only 2kb in size with this trick), but this did limit the # of tiles I can have in a map room to 16. Luckily, there were no limits for objects, so I could use them to plug in the occasional time I needed something to give the appearance of an object.  I also used a trick to 'pad' a map room with a single tile, so I could keep the maps smaller, mainly for pathing or other tiles that was not of the default padding.  Objects were next; each one in a map room was 8 bytes each, had ID, X & Y position and what they could do.  Most of them (initially) were for warping from one location to another, objects that would decorate and/or block a player's pathing, NPCs for interacting with, treasure chests to open, etc.  Objects that changed what monsters you would encounter were not used until much later.  Dialogue would soon follow, with most of it being.  But the time I was at alpha build 5 or 6, most of the main non-battle content was done.  I tackled game data next; monster data, party layout and inventory; If there is something I don't like, I can fix it later.
• It started to get a bit more tricky once the combat system was in place.  I started with a single enemy and tried to get it working, before I started adding others to the mix.  Even so, there were plenty of bugs along the way; bad attacks from the enemies, stuff not going in order, accidentally pulling the wrong stats for attack and defense, the list goes on.  This was a bigger pain than expected...
• Two things I worked on closer to the end of the project were the flag and switch set and eventually the music and sound effects.  The flag and switch setup was a case of when a flag was set, a check would run though a list of in-game actions and run it if the ID# of the flag matched.  (Like if you opened a treasure chest, flipped a switch, defeated a boss, etc., does this do something in the game, like change a wall to a door?  Change map music?  Give the player an item or money?  The music editor was a case of typing out notes, their length and special things, like rests in the music, changes in volume, selecting which waveform it used and special effects (I think I had more fun with making the music than the rest of the project put together).
• Prior the the madness of bug fixes, I including the remaining odds and ends I wanted to include: New Game, Load and Save feature, options page for customizing preferrences, title screen, multiple difficulties, clock, etc.
• The resource editor saw continued changes along the way, like noting what stuff was for sale when I set an object to a shop or what an NPC was saying for their dialogue, etc.  

Fix bugs.

• This probably took more time than anything else.  Luckily, JS' dev console is alright at telling me what line is giving me trouble (Unless the line refers to one of my functions, in which case, it's bad data being forward to it and I have to comb through why that is happening; I went stircrazy with an inventory glitch that was happening during battle for the longest time)

Perhaps .rar files have more than one setup or configuration and 7-zip does not recognize all of them?  I dunno.  Grasping at straws here, but I stand by what I said; it only happened a couple times for me.

I would rather post a .zip file or maybe a .7z file on here anyway, for the sake of better compatibility.  On my site where I have a hundreds of bundles, they are all .zip files, since it's something (pretty much) anyone can open.

I have had 7-zip open them, but I have had a couple times where they did not.  The times it did not, I tried Winrar and they opened without problems.  I am simply pointing out an alternate means in case they do not open with 7-zip.