I didn't make a devlog in the last jam, mostly because I hadn't decided what type of game I was gonna make until well into the 2 weeks. This time, however, I have a semi-clear idea of what I'm gonna make.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Flappy Shmup!

Please ignore the awful framerate, my computer apparently can't handle recording a simple GIF.

Okay, so it's a bit lacking in the Shmup department at the moment. But the Flappy part is almost done, and that's pretty much the base of the game.

The idea I have for the final game is a Flappy Bird clone where, along with dodging pipes, enemies will come from the side of the screen which you have to shoot down, preferably before they shoot you.

None of the artwork has been made yet, but the idea I have for the aesthetic is something retro and/or space themed.  Think Galaga, but with a vaporwave color pallete. Of course, that's if I decide to make the art myself.

As for sound, I'll make the sound effects using Chiptone, which is a tool for creating chiptune sound effects made by the Super Flash Brothers. It's like a web version of bfxr, if you're familiar with that. I'm not sure what background music I'll end up using.

I'll try to keep this devlog updated, so expect updates around once or twice a day. I think that should be enough, considering I have 13 days to finish this game.

I know it's Day 3 of the jam, but I started this yesterday.

Today I've been mainly working on the art for Flappy Shmup. I probably should've focused on getting the shmup part of the game done, but I guess I just got sidetracked.

Remember when I said the aesthetic would be "Galaga but with a vaporwave color pallete"? I think I should demonstrate what that looks like. Behold:

Galaga but with a vaporwave color pallete!

The art isn't going to look exactly like that, though. I've been making some of the assets, and I've decided to go with the thick outlines that Flappy Bird's artwork has. Take a look at my bird sprite:

Since our bird's going to be firing lasers from his eyes, I decided to give him a Cyclops inspired visor. My brother said it looked like Geordie from Star Trek, though.

Now take a look at my pipes:

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I think the bird could use some work, though.

If you have any tips on how to improve my pixel art, don't hesitate to share them with me! I could also use some advice on how to come up with a better name than "Flappy Shmup".

Unrelated, but I just scored 29 points while playtesting. That's the highest score I've gotten while playing any version of Flappy Bird! I feel compelled to tell you about this for some reason!

I didn't get much done today for a couple reasons. I'm not going to explain those reasons, though. Instead, let's look at the bright side and see what I did do today.

First off, here are three screenshots showcasing the current state of the game. There's a lot of new stuff in them, so let's break them down one by one:

Screenshot #1 shows the "Click to start!' screen. This message will pop up when you start up the game. This screenshot also shows our bird protagonist and the background.

The Click to start screen isn't actually new, and neither is the Game Over screen in Screenshot #3. I made both of those yesterday, but I haven't shown them until now.

Screenshot #2 is where the new stuff begins. I'm holding right-click in this screenshot, which continuously fires those wide, blue projectiles you see above. Those are the bird's lasers! You can also see an enemy in the bottom right (the magenta box) and a bullet fired by an enemy in the bottom left.

Screenshot #3 showcases the game over screen. Notice how there are 3 enemies now. That's because enemies spawn every 2 seconds and they wrap around the screen, so if you're not careful, enemies can quickly pile up on screen. Clicking the retry button just takes you back to Click to start.

I really wish I could share a GIF of all this, but I tried to record it and it was lagging waaay too much.  I really need a better computer.

That's all that I've been working on for now. But before I go, I'll leave you with the enemy bullet sprite in all it's fully animated glory.

Trippy.

One word:

Enemies!

They come in three colors, and each one has different properties:

the Reds have average speed and health,

the Purples move slowly, but are durable,

and the Blues are weak, but really fast.

Every two seconds, a random enemy will spawn at one of 6 points just outside the right edge of the screen, and head left from there. Once they reach a certain point, they shoot the purple orb that I showed in the last post, which heads towards the position the player was at when it was fired.

The player dies in one hit from touching either a bullet, an enemy, or a pipe.

You get different amounts of points depending on which enemy you kill, with Blues (and pipes) giving you the most points, while Reds will give you the least.

Now that I've made the enemies, the game is basically done. I'm not gonna submit it now, though. There are 9 days left in the jam, so I'm gonna try and implement some more features, like...

• A counter that displays how many pipes you've passed,
• Tips on the "Click to start!" screen,
• Saving your high score after you've exited the game, and an option to reset it,
• Multiple backgrounds,
• Difficulty increasing the longer you stay alive,
• Bosses, etc.

I most likely won't be able to implement all of those, but I'll try and do some of them. In the meantime, if you want to play the current build of the game, you can do so here. Press left-click to flap and hold right-click to shoot. I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Can you move it along? I'm all out of time cards.

I'm gonna try something different today: instead of writing one big update, I'll split it into multiple small updates.

I've implemented the difficulty ramping, but it only affects the pipes. The pipes will start at a speed of 255, and every second, that speed will increase by 2. They'll still spawn at the same rate (one pair of pipes every 3 seconds) but they'll move faster as time goes on, making them harder to dodge.

To test this, I implemented God Mode. Press G, and you'll turn yellow and become invincible.

Here's what the list of features I want to implement looks like now:

• A counter that displays how many pipes you've passed,
• Tips on the "Click to start!" screen,
• Saving your high score after you've exited the game, and an option to reset it,
• Multiple backgrounds,
• Difficulty increasing the longer you stay alive,
• God Mode,
• Bosses, etc.

I'll post more later.

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If you want to play the Day 4 build of the game, you can do so here. Press left-click to flap and hold right-click to shoot.

Day 5 Devlog 2: Electric Boogaloo

I've animated the UFO enemies. Take a look at Red:

I haven't done much else today, but I figure I should show something in the Day 4 build that I haven't mentioned in the devlog yet.

See the blue circle above Purple? That's a graphic that'll appear when one of the bird's lasers hits an enemy. There's already a sound effect to indicate that, but I realized that if you're playing without sound, it'd be hard to tell if your laser hit an enemy or not, so I added that in as a visual indicator.

When animated, it looks like this:

It'a a lot smaller than that in-game, but you get the idea.

One last thing: while writing this, I left the game open on the Game Over screen in another tab, and I realized that I...

• didn't make it so that enemies stop spawning while you're dead
• didn't put a cap on the amount of enemies that can be on-screen at once

( ౦ ‸ ౦ ; )

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If you want to play the Day 5 build of the game, go here. Press left click to flap and hold right click to shoot. I'd love to hear your feedback!

Day

Sorry for not updating in two days, I've been busy. Yesterday I made a ton of progress on Flappy Shmup, so let's take a look at that.

You know how in Tetris, when you clear a certain amount of lines, you go up one level and the game gets faster? Well, I did something similar with Flappy Shmup. For every 6 pipes you pass by, you'll go up one level. The game will get faster and faster each level until you hit level 4, which is as fast as the game will get.

There are six levels total: Level 0, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5. Each level has a different vaporwave style background, and the background shown in the previous posts is now just the background for Level 0.

I also implemented a text object that will display a random tip when you die, from a selection of six. One of these tips reads: "Something is waiting for you at level 5...", which is a pretty important detail. I'll get to that later, though.

Another thing I did was tweak the enemies a bit. Red was weak compared to Purple and Blue, and also kind of boring to fight, since Red didn't have a special quality like Purples tankyness or Blue's speed. Red now fires two bullets in quick succession instead of just one, which should make Red a more interesting enemy to fight. I also slightly nerfed Purple and Blue, since they were a bit too strong.

Flappy Shmup also has music now! The song Rhinoceros by Kevin MacLeod is the main theme that plays throughout most of the game:

and the song that plays in the Game Over screen is Game Over from Galaga '88:

I'm not sure what song I'll have in Level 5 yet, but right now I've put in King Galaspark from Galaga Arrangement as temp music:

Speaking of Level 5, I guess I should explain what that thing I mentioned earlier is.

Take a look:

I apologize for the crappy phone recording, but it's either that or a GIF at 5 fps.

Anyway, this is Big Green. He's the boss of Flappy Shmup, and I think you can see why. He's big, can take a ton of punishment (you can see how much health he has in the bottom right corner), and shoots a bullet every two seconds. As he loses health, he'll start to shoot them faster, up to a maximum fire rate of one bullet every 1.2 seconds.

Once you take down Big Green, you'll enter Level Extra, an extra level which lasts forever until you die. Dying in Level Extra changes the message at the top of the Game Over screen from "Game Over" to "Thanks for playing!".  I wan't to keep what Level Extra looks like a secret, so I won't show it here.

Now that Big Green and Level Extra are implemented, I think the game is done. Right now, I'm just playtesting it as much as I can to see if there are any bugs and to make sure the game is possible to beat. The only major features I haven't implemented yet are:

• Saving your high score after you've exited the game, and an option to reset it
• Volume slider

I tried adding a volume slider before, but I failed horribly. I also have no idea how saving works. But there are 5 days left, so I think what I'll do is submit the game later today and then work on those features. I'll update this devlog once the game is submitted.

After a long day of fine tuning and playtesting, Flappy Shmup has been submitted! Play it and tell me what you think!