itch.io

Hello itch.io,

I'm pleased to announce that BLOB & PADDLE, after 9 months of development is released. BLOB & PADDLE's gameplay is a mishmash of Breakout + topdown arcade action games. You play as Blob attempting to find the key to each of 8 levels to rescue their friend. The goal was to create a short one-sitting simple, but engaging playthrough which had a story, intuitive gameplay, and throwbacks to some of the classic arcade games I grew up playing. The music, sprites, and coding was all done by myself.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback! Thanks to anyone who checks out the game, the "lookback" development blog post, or the music. Game development is challenging but incredible. I'm sure everyone who has published a game is aware of how much effort and love goes into each of the games that hit this site.

Game Link:
https://bjromano.itch.io/blob-and-paddle

Dev Blog Post:
https://bjromano.itch.io/blob-and-paddle/devlog/722636/blob-paddle-development-g...

Music:
https://bjrom.bandcamp.com/album/blob-paddle-soundtrack

Trailer:

Thanks for playing the game and taking time to comment. As you delve deeper, most monsters you find will be stronger and stranger, but I agree the game should emphasize the "end game" more to make the end feel more impactful. Appreciate your time and feedback!

Thanlksso much for playing the game, it means a lot that you enjoyed it enough to comment. An accomplishment page would be a good idea, but I was hoping to keep the scope smaller on this project. Thanks again for playing!

I really enjoyed this early prototype. I found your work from twitter which I found from your Breaktory game. I don't have specific feedback besides just to say the core concept is fun and definitely has lots of space to be explored. It reminds me of a beatemup dragonball fighter z.

Really fun game. I like the idea of the weapon being your propulsion system as well. I've been playing through a lot of your games and am impressed by your aesthetic and creativity. You've given me some inspiration for games of my own.

Hi Sunny, thanks so much for leaving a comment and your feedback. I'm glad you enjoy playing the game.

The movement speed - yeah I played around with the different ship speeds. The first few builds of the game had everything moving a lot faster, here's an imgur link of a very early build https://imgur.com/a/QK36CXg I eventually slowed it down to match the music and I also thought it added a bit of tension. Also the slow movement speed makes the boost from the shield ability more noticeable. I think the game could be sped up slightly though.

The enemies spawning - I kept running into this problem too and decided to implement the "egg" looking pre-spawned enemies so you could see where they will appear before you will actually be killed be colliding with one. The problem then is that if there was too much headsup on where the enemies would spawn it broke the flow of the gameplay and you would be able to easily shoot at where the enemies would appear. I tried to find a balance on this and made the "egg" pre-spawn animation appear briefly, but I admit I'll even collide with the spawned enemies leading to a frustrating run. I think the headsup on the spawn time could be slightly increased as well.

Yeah the movement is very rigid and doesn't have any momentum just so you can precisely avoid enemy bullets. Thanks for playing and for the feedback! 

This is my first game so everything you said is really valuable. My artistic abilities aren't too great so I tried to keep the graphics/colors as simple as possible which actually constrained some of the gameplay a bit since, as you said, some of the mechanics like different enemies/powerups can be difficult to interpret. Thanks for playing and for the feedback, I really appreciate the time you took to do so!

And I am thinking about adapting it to mobile once I tinker out a good enough control/aiming scheme. I think it would work well.

Play for free in your browser right now:
https://bjromano.itch.io/vulcan

In the future, alien drones plague human protectorates. You are a salvaged drone ship tasked with destroying Vulcan. Wipe out the mechanical threat by transforming into enemy ships, using their own weapons, and leveling up to become powerful beyond belief. Can you successfully defend all 10 colonies?

This is a 2D shooter/survival game where you can scan and transform into enemy ships and use their weaponry against them. With over 7 playable ships and weapons, that can each power-up up to 10 times, in addition to a powerful boost-shield, you can fight the enemy drones exactly how you want.

Thank you for checking out my game! Hope you enjoy it.