So there's my story.
I decided to take on this jam because I have been making games for 7 months now, but I've never actually finished a game.
After the theme was released the idea jumped into my mind immediately: a platformer game mixed with a top-down perspective. I used the end of this day to write top-down movement and I started creating platformer controller. That was the end of day 0 :).
Next day I finished movement scripts and made tilesets for both perspectives. It was the time to draw Johnny (he was unnamed at the time J). Fortunately there were not so many animations to make. Then I set up a grid system making it easier to create new levels. In the end of the day I worked on UI a bit, made a game manager and a main menu. I went to sleep feeling tired, but optimistic.
The real challenges started on the final day. It all started with a bugged tilemap where spikes contained a little part of a different tile, even though it wasn’t drawn on the sprite.
After fixing it, I made a tutorial level and dialogue. But the gamedev gods had more troubles for me: I realized that my main menu got deleted and I’m still not sure how is that possible, but I had to redo it 3 times because of self deletes.
Finally I got to work on the other levels, but I was already low on time so I made only 6 of them. I also managed to accidently delete my tutorial.
With about 3 hours remaining I started working on audio for the game. It was something that I’ve never done before, so it took me a while. First I made a track in Bosca Ceoil and designed other sounds in sfxr. After putting it together I made an end screen.
I was getting worried that I won’t finish on time just to realize that we got one more hour! It literally saved me. I worked on audio some more, somehow my audio manager wasn’t working correctly so I nervously tried to fix it before the deadline. And I did it! Kinda… That’s the point where a very nasty bug comes from (I probably forgot about something obvious in hurry): music overlaps in some of the playthroughs. Sorry for that guys! I’m also aware that it inflicts my sound ratings even though normally music sounds great imo.
It was time to build my game. I also have never done that. I decided to go with web version, so it’ll be easier to play it. I accidently typed the wrong resolution in build settings forcing some players to lower the page size to play the game. I submitted the game 29 seconds before the deadline! (I was struggling with the game page cause I thought we can’t modify it after uploading)
So yeah! That was my story. I feel like I’ve never learned that much in that short amount of time. It was a really great experience.
Also I wanted thank you all who played, rated, commented or gave some feedback! Your support really means a lot to me! And for those who didn’t play Johnny Split yet, I highly encourage to do so! https://tyrannosaurus-games.itch.io/johnny-split
Thanks for reading!