Heyo, I'm Simon, and I'm currently going to work on a pretty simple and quick top-down 2d shooter game in Game Maker Studio 2. I plan to keep a dev log, if that is okay with the moderators and the folks in charge with the jam, because it helps me keep focus and keep track of progress. Today is probably going to be setting up basic movement and collision while trying to figure out what I want the game's story or basic theme to be. So unless I am stopped, I'll be posting progress pics and talking about what I'm doing here. I just game out of another game jam that I wasn't able to finish in time, so I'm really hoping that I can get this one done before the week is out.

I'll keep posting updates as I go along. I hope you all enjoy!

Update Number 1: I went back to another project to quickly copy and paste over the menu system and dialog system to save some time. There's some visual quirks due to the window size being different than my other game, but that can be adjusted later. For now we have a very tiny menu while I get started on the game itself.

very itty bitty for now since I was going to function over everything else, but I'll come back to fix it at some point. Now it's time to get started on the game itself. I figured out a VERY basic plot idea that fits the theme decently enough. I'll try my best not to spoil too much.

Update Number 2:

Player movement, collision, and weapon movement have been added! As well as the sprites for the player character and the first weapon!

you're a dog wizard! Woof woof!

Next up is adding bullets and shooting into the game and then I'll call it day and post a lot of screenshots.

Update Number 3:

Bullets have been added and pain has been had! I added in the bullets for our little dog wizard to shoot out of his wand, but unfortunately there was an issue with the bullets that caused a very annoying alignment issue. I had forgotten to move the origin point of my bullet to the middle of the bullet and it instead sat on the top left, causing this issue: 

as you can see the bullets do not align with the top of the wand and in some points come out of the paws or the air instead. Also there's a bunch of bullets coming out at once but that's been fixed now.

Turns out spending 20 minutes on a 3 second fix is very frustrating, but I figured it out and fixed the bullet problem and now everything is going swimmingly!

Look at that doggy go!

A sad thing about the gif maker im using however, does not give you a good look at the dog you'll be wizarding with. So here's a close up!

as you might have noticed, he is armless as his arms are a part of the weapon sprite.

That is about all for today, I plan on getting more work done tomorrow and working towards multiple weapons, enemies, and damage. And soon I need to figure out how to add opening and ending cut scenes for the sake of the story, otherwise the game won't fit the theme very well. But for the rest of the night, I'm just going to go and goof off after 6 hours of work.

Update Number 4:

I finished coding for the day, but unfortunately I did not get as much done as I wanted to. Throughout this whole process I have been following a tutorial on how to make a 2d top down shooter game in Game Maker Studio 2 (The tutorial is by Peyton Burnham on YouTube and he will be credited in the game). The tutorial is 13 parts long and to get it done on time with a little extra time to polish it, I've been aiming for about 3 tutorials a day with one day getting an extra tutorial. It's been helping me learn and understand code and how to code in game maker more and more, especially since some of the tutorials touch on things I have learned before.  Well. Turns out part 6 is the most complex out of the bunch and requires extra time and effort to really understand why the code is being made, and in the tutorial itself he mentioned that if you're binging the tutorials, you might have to come back to part 6 tomorrow because it might be too much information and coming back with fresh eyes will help you learn better.

I took a quick 30 minute to an hour long break, thinking that would refresh my mind a bit more... and all the information I was receiving was going in one ear and out the other. So I'll do that one tomorrow instead!

However, this does not mean I didn't get a lot of work done, I just didn't get as much as I wanted to get done.

Some things that were added were:

• Added Dog Wizard's tail so he looks more like a dog when far away
• Changed the main projectile to match the magic wand a little more
• Added multiple wands with different projectiles and fire rates
• Added the ability to switch through the wands
• Added enemies and the ability to kill them
• Added moving zombie cats

What I am most excited for are the weapons, as adding them and customizing them is SUPER easy and it makes me want to add more. It might cause a problem with balance as one weapon might end up being extremely overpowered, but if the player is having fun... is it really a problem? (it might be)

Here's a little sneak peak at the different wands you can pick from!

the basic magic wand

A rapid-firing blue wand

a multi firing purple wand

this update doesn't have any gifs to show off the game this time, mainly because I am very tired. turns out, spending HOURS of your day coding a game and learning about coding takes up a lot of energy, and I'd rather play the sims 2 right now. So I'll take a break for the day, and just hope that I can get enough of the tutorials done, because unfortunately for me, today is my last full day off of the week.

I'll post another update tomorrow, I hope you all enjoy in the meantime!

Nice

Update 4.5: The last 2 days I was unable to work on the game meaning that because I was unable to do the 6th tutorial on Monday, I need to do 4 tutorials both today and tomorrow since the Jam ends at 6am on Saturday. Hurray for me (I am not looking forward to this)

I also need to get art assets done for at least the menu and the play page. I do want to add 2 cut scenes but I feel like I could always just add a few more sprites and figure it out from there. Worst comes to worst, I'll just not have them. It's a game jam game, it's not a long time finished product that i'm selling.

So I wanted to give this small half update, to update any of yall curious about why the last 2 days have been radio silence, and to let yall know what should be coming next.