Yeah, Ludum Dare was great fun this time around, and 2 weeks later I’m still rating the odd game that pops up so why not write about my experiences writing a themed gameboy game in 2 days?
It’s 2:20am, that’s a good reason as to why I shouldn’t but heyyyy, time is time.
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Somehow the game came together in a natural way this time around, I did a fair bit of play testing and the game evolved from a simple vertical thrust and one button to fire at things into more of a challenge against the odds.
Those odds being both coding for the Gameboy and making the most out of two button controls to achieve more complex gameplay than just thrust infinitely, avoiding all enemies, which at one point the game looked like it was going to end up being. Until…
That one thing that jetpacks infamously run out of…FUEL! Having enemies drop fuel cans, means the player has to hang around a bit to collect them to progress.
Which is fine, but, even with the added auto firing and gun-recoil for horizontal movement, how in the hell is the player going to get the damned things….
Have them home in onto the player of course, DUHH!
Honestly, those decisions I made on Day 2 are what really made the game work better. I could talk about how much of a thing it is to get the Gameboy to use sprite data, limitations of 40 8×8 sprites per screen and 8 per scanline and the finickiness of writing to sound registers for a long time, but, see it took just less than a paragraph. (Seriously, though, those sound registers and optimisation for a 4Mhz machine, gahh!)
Quickie Post-Mortem:
Pros: It was fun, challenging to make and a lot happened on the fly, there’s sound effects everywhere! I learnt more about GBDK, C++ and feel refreshed to tackle my other Gameboy games I have in development.
Cons: I still can’t compose music for toffee. No, really, offer me a toffee to compose music for you, I won’t take the toffee, I promise. Gameboy music. even tougher.
Go check out Novascape? Because you need to escape…the planet Novatron 7…Before you get consumed by hot, boiling lava rising up from underneath you!
Play the game, be frustrated at the old skool difficulty, enjoy it anyway hopefully?
