This game made me a little less depressed and a little more hopeful today. Thank you.
goop
Recent community posts
Hello everyone !!
1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
Hi! My name is Sara. I'm a québécoise woman currently living in Montréal, recently graduated with a BA in linguistics, will be moving to Finland sometime this summer. I think it's a good time in my life to be trying new things!
2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what
do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for
joining?
I participated in the last summer jam but I didn't manage to finish my game, despite spending a lot of time on it. I overextended myself and got in a bit of a slump that just threw me off completely. This time I'd like to actually finish my game!
3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
Some franchises I really appreciate include Pokemon, Kirby and Legend of Zelda. I'm also really fond of adventure games like the Monkey Island series. I feel really inspired by the level of detail in worldbuilding in Pokemon and really enjoy the sense of exploration that comes with playing these games, so that's something I'd like to carry into the games I do at some point, albeit probably not the one I'll be starting to make now, because that kind of goal would require a bigger-scale project. I also feel really inspired by games like OFF and Cave Story in terms of establishing examples of really high quality games made independently.
4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
I have messed around with Adventure Game Studio and started a game I didn't finish. I also made a tiny Bitsy game in the last week. That's all!
5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
I'm really passionate about syntax and linguistic fieldwork and I intend on continuing to study linguistics! Also lately I've been feeling really drawn to solarpunk themes and values and I want to incorporate those in the game I'll be making.
6. What are your goals for this game jam?
I want to create a complete game and learn the basics of RPGMaker. I also want to have a nice time and meet new people!
7. Any advice to new jammers (if you're a veteran)?
I would definitely advise fellow participants to keep their initial goals modest: it's easier to scale up than to scale down and scaling down feels pretty demoralizing.
I just thought I'd write an update since it's been a while : I ended up in a slump bc of health issues and didn't do more work after the last time I posted. It's unfortunate but I didn't feel I could scale down my project without botching it entirely. I'm happy I got to learn abt how to use AGS tho and I hope to complete a game on my next attempt at making one, tho I think it will need to be on my own terms & within my own schedule. I'm looking forward to playing other ppl's games whose development I've kept an eye on !! Kudos.
log #11
Work done so far : I made 1 background yesterday and that was all, couldn't do much more bc there was a really long power outage. Haven't done any work today bc I'm feeling kinda terrible.
Concerns : Not rlly feeling motivated or excited anymore, hope it will pass.
Short term goals : Can't say I have any rn.
log #10
Work done so far : I made all the remaining sprites & 2 new backgrounds ! I'm especially fond of how the fairy monarch looks but I might change their colour scheme, not sure.
Concerns : N/A
Short term goals : Make lots of backgrounds tomorrow !! There's lots of indoors backgrounds I haven't drawn, thankfully these take less time than outdoors backgrounds.
log #9
Work done so far : Did 4 more backgrounds as planned ! Things are progressing well.
Concerns : There are minor inconsistencies between the backgrounds but it's not a huge deal, I'll fix them if I have extra time or if they start bothering me.
Short term goals : Make sprites for all the remaining characters and 2 new backgrounds tomorrow.
log #8
Work done so far : I didn't do anything yesterday bc I had a lot going on and/or was a little lazy (not sure which)! I'm going to try to do extra work today. I've completed my first batch of sprites, either modifying them or creating them. I've also made doodles for all the other characters!
Concerns : N/A
Short term goal : I want to draw 4 backgrounds today, it's quite a lot but I can do it! I want to get all my sprites and backgrounds in order for friday.
log #7
Work done so far : 3 new backgrounds! Would like to make a fourth but I have p bad handcramps. I also fiddled with my sprites some more to remove the white lines, I think they'll look better without them.
The foresty background will have fruits & flowers integrated as objects later. I'm p happy with my progress!
Concerns : Hand cramps ;_;
Short term goals : Make/finish the sprites for all the characters I doodled & doodle 10 more designs & make 1 or 2 more backgrounds tomorrow.
log #6 (might be making an excessive amount of logs per day compared to other ppl but it helps me so, hm, yeah)
Work done so far : Made more character design doodles, I find these much more eye-catching than what I'd initially done yesterday. Characters made yesterday are definitely going in the trash. I'm aiming to make more or less 20 characters so these new designs account for half of them. Made some (non-animated) sprites for 7 characters, which are now a better height (abt 70px tall). Will not be redesigning them; but might polish them if I have extra time. Switched from using JPixel to Aseprite to make the sprites; huge improvement.
Also did some research wrt the scaling issue and it looks like I can change the scaling the playable character appears in for a specific walkable area. Doesn't look like it scales the NPCs accordingly tho. May have to design bigger-than-usual sprites for characters indoors and vary the scaling between indoors & outdoors for the playable character; I think it'll work out better than having everything be at the same scale everywhere bc my indoors background would look kind of half-empty in that situation.
Concerns : None at the moment. (Well, the skin color selection in 8bit could be better, but there's not much to do wrt that short of doing dithering, & I don't feel like it.)
Short term goal : I'm going to aim to accomplish the room-making goal I set yesterday (make 4), sometime this evening, but I'll postpone making speech animations because I did enough sprite work for today.
log #5
I think I'm going to scrap most of the characters I made today, I don't want to be too much of a perfectionist but I'm pretty sure I can do better within a reasonable amount of time, like these two silhouettes doodles are already better than what I had for NPC 2 & 3 in my previous post :
Anyway all my sprites should all be taller than they currently are tbh. And today I was kind of just making characters from scratch in a pixel art editor & I don't think it's the right way to go at it. Doodling lots of silhouettes & keeping the best ones works better. Hm. Not sure abt this. But anyway I'll see.
log #4
Work done so far : I made 4 NPC sprites as I was planning on doing altho I wasn't super inspired to make them and I don't find them great . At least they're p distinct from one another. I integrated two of the NPCs in the game with their speech animation. I also connected my rooms & defined the walkable/walk behind areas for the 2 I hadn't taken care of, and tweaked some of the backgrounds a bit.
Concerns : The scaling between characters & the background in this preview above is way off, I'll have to see if I can make characters change size depending on the room they're in, or if I'll have to redraw this.
Short term goals : Tomorrow - Research what the engine allows me to do, if anything, wrt character:room size differences; draw some more rooms (let's say 4), make the speech animations for the two NPCs who lack them & integrate them in the game.
General thoughts : I think I'm going to aim to design & integrate all the rooms & characters this week, then create & integrate all the items & dialogs next week. That leaves out some stuff like intro & ending sequences, which shouldn't take relatively long, but are still pretty vital. I'm also going to try to push through when I'm not feeling super creative, like I did today, and reach the goals I set; I want to create something that runs & has a beginning and an end. Perfection is the enemy of the good & more importantly, the done, etc, whatever.
log #2
Work done so far : I struggled with fixing the issue with resolution but eventually did after a minor freak out; managed to define the walkable & walk behind areas for the first room. Also drew the backgrounds for two additional rooms :
Concerns : None rn, but have to remind myself to stay consistent with my brush size (5px) & that the default size of my rooms is 640x480 (backgrounds may be bigger but not smaller than this). Also, have to breathe in when encountering technical problems.
Short term goals : Tomorrow, create the sprite of the playable character and 4 NPCs; define walkable/wb areas for the two new rooms & connect them. (Extra mile goal : create some dialog or items.)
log #1
Prejam prep : I thought abt the main gist of the plot. My game is about a human who stumbles into a fairy ring & gets stuck in a fairy village. They must pass a trial if they wanna go back home. The trial consists in making 3 fairy meals correctly by gathering clues & objects around the village. I'm incorporating common lore abt fairies such as the fact that eating fairy food results in being stuck in fairyland forever, and that metal repels magic (both will be plot points). I've chosen my engine (adventure game studio) & I've also made a couple of sketches :
Concerns : I have never done any video game design so I will have to learn how to use the engine as I go, and it's kind of hard to estimate how much time I will need to do what, bc it's so new. I will do what I can & try to keep my game short & simple.
(The title of the game is temporary, I'll try to think of a catchier one.)
Work done so far : I drew the background of the room that serves as a starting point.
Concerns : Gotta mess around with the resolution/scaling (?) for my background on AGS bc right now it shows my room as zoomed in & it's unsightly. Gotta make sure I keep my scaling consistent between rooms, also.
Short term goals : I'm going to aim to make 2 more room backgrounds today and define the walkable/walk-behind areas today. Gotta take a break first.
1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
Hi ! My name's Sara. I'm a 22 y/o québécoise gal & a student in linguistics. I've got my fair share of brainweird stuff going on and that makes it hard for me to complete art projects but I want to give this a try !!
2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?
I've never participated in any game jams, I'm joining bc I think it'll help me take a stab at video game creation & remain motivated & not feel so overwhelmed !! I'm also looking forward to meeting cool people thru this.
3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
My fave games include Cave story, Undertale, the Pokemon & LoZ franchises in general, OFF and Loom ! I'd like to capture Undertale's ability to make every character, however minor, special, and I wanna just like make something fun & enchanting.
4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
I've made two little projects in Twine but that's about it!
5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
I'm rlly into syntax and that's what I wanna specialize in! I've always loved drawing. I also love cats & exclamation marks !!