Aloha Everyone! I hope you are enjoying the jam :D

This year, for the first time, I decided to participate. It’s a jam I’ve been following for a couple of years, and I find it fascinating what devs can achieve with such resolution restrictions.

For this jam, as a personal challenge, I set out to make a fighting game as simplified as possible. With this in mind, I decided to create a super basic and simple RPS (Rock-Paper-Scissors) game. I dedicated two full days to the combat system, and it is now complete from start to finish, showing a winner, a bit of interface, and a very basic/rudimentary scene system that is 100% functional for what I need.

Another important aspect is that I wanted to pay homage to those indie games to which I’ve dedicated many hours that represent memorable moments in my life. To do this, I created a roster of characters and a few frames of some of them in just one day. The roster so far looks like this:

• The Impostor (from Among Us)
• Green Knight (from Castle Crashers)
• Gomez (from FEZ)
• Dwight (original character)
• Pops (from Samurai Gunn 2)
• Mugman (from Cuphead)
• Madeline (from Celeste)
• Open Slots for more characters (I have in mind Sans from Undertale, The Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter, the Prisoner from Dead Cells, and/or Peppino Spaghetti from Pizza Tower).

I have even created several stages that I would like to include later in the jam through a stage selector before entering a fight, but I will implement that after I finish the roster.

In the coming days, I will be working on implementing the roster and their animations, all uniform with gameplay.

Day 4 or 5 is dedicated to the game. Today, I managed to implement and complete the character selection screen. Both player 1 and player 2 can choose any character from the 8 planned in the roster (though not all are finished).

It took me a while, but I got it to work. Tomorrow I will have some free time and implement the drawing of characters in combat, making their frames appear at the necessary moments. With that, I can move on to a stage selection between character selection and combat.

Any feedback is welcome!

Between yesterday and today, I made progress on several things. The main advancements were the stage selection and having the match occur in the chosen stage.

On the other hand, I implemented a basic sprite drawing system (1-frame animations). With this, the game reached a new level, and I find the sprite changes and how the encounters unfold very amusing. It now feels like it has a soul and personality.

I still have several fundamental things to complete, such as audio, finishing the frames for several characters, and adding a micro “combo” system that would just be flavor text to give the game more richness and HYPE. :D

Aloha everyone! Here’s another update for the game, version 0.7, featuring several important additions and some fixes. Overall, the game is now 100% functional and playable. I still need to adjust the controls to make them more intuitive and allow both players to play with a single controller if required (on mobile).

I finally added the game title (I had to cut it because it wouldn’t fit in the 64-pixel width, but it turned out decent :D).

I added the missing sprites for several characters (Dwight, Madeline, and Pops).

Last but not least, I implemented a basic combo system that keeps track of consecutive hits a player makes without breaking the streak. It’s straightforward, but I found it effective and fits well with the fighting game fantasy.

Now, what remains are details to give the game more polish, such as the entire audio section (I just started learning how it works in TIC-80), one more character (I haven’t decided which one from the ones I mentioned a few days ago), and most importantly, a bar that can indicate to players the exact moment when it will be evaluated whether a hit connects or not. This aims to provide a key visual cue and give players an extra layer in the metagame, such as mind games, baits, and strategic changes in playstyle.

Well, today was quite complicated because I didn’t have much free time due to work, but I made several tweaks that I had pending and felt could considerably improve the experience.

To this end, I added a couple of bars that help (or so I choose to believe) the players know when the action they performed (attack, block, grab, or POW) will be executed. This helps to strategize the fight a bit more.

On the other hand, I finally added the victory/defeat sprites for the characters at the end of each match to make it more fun :D. Lastly, I added a basic data structure that will help me tomorrow to create the game’s music (or so I think).

Finally, I believe tomorrow will be the most important and challenging day of the jam because I don’t have much free time due to work, and I need to tackle two important points: the music, which I have no idea how to make in TIC-80, and changing the controls to something more user-friendly since they are quite confusing without instructions right now. Ideally, I would love to create a small tutorial screen for the FTUE (First-Time User Experience), but we’ll see about that.

Well, I don’t know if I can add the audio before the jam ends. I’m tired but very happy with the result. I feel that the game captures the essence of a fighting game, which is more than enough for me, and it’s also fun to play with a friend.

Overall, today (and perhaps in this last devlog) I was able to do a few things to improve the experience. First of all, I was pleased to introduce a character that is very memorable to me, The Drifter (from Hyper Light Drifter), with a moveset inspired by his main game movements (I tried my best, and I think it looks pretty cool xD).

Additionally, I modified the controls to make them much more intuitive for both players. They are now as follows:

Player 1:

[Button Down] Attack / Confirm Selection

[Button Up] POW Special

[Button Left] Grab / Change left

[Button Right] Block / Change right

Player 2:

[Button A] Attack / Confirm Selection

[Button Y] POW Special

[Button X] Grab / Change left

[Button B] Block / Change right

I hid the debug variables I was using, and now the game is entirely contained within the 64x64 canvas (which is the challenge of this jam), so mission accomplished.

Here is a complete fight with two epic characters!