This game was created for the New Year New Skills Game jam in the span of approximately 5 days. (I had to finish the jam early).
The theme of the Jam was "Creating Connections".
Snowscape Fixer
Snowscape Fixer is a simple platformer where you go around the map and fix telephone poles.
It is set in a time when phone lines were still important and when today's modern appliances all seem like science fiction.
The main protagonist has the unfortunate luck of working on Christmas with an overly chatty radio operator. He definitely does not want to be there but the job is to be done.
Jump and walk through the levels as the weather gets progressively worse on your journey.
Game Instructions
Important: You can drop 3 tiles without game-over triggering. The easiest way to measure this distance is one tree + a wall tile above. This is a safe drop distance and you'll need to make drops like that.
It's a Pico-8 game so the normal control scheme applies:
Arrow buttons to move
X button is the X on the keyboard
O button (looks square also) is the C on the keyboard.
So all you need are the 4 arrows and X + C.
X to jump
Up + C to fix poles (got to press up first)
Down + C to drop ledges
And that's basically all you need to control the game.
There are two modes:
Story Mode - 10 levels (handmade) - About 5 minutes, with a little story sprinkled in there
Endless Mode - Very basic random generated levels -- You can 'regenerate' the level manually if you deem it uncompletable. Also sometimes the levels are generated without objectives. It is what it is.
Devlog
Read on if you are interested in the game-jam experience and want to know more about the journey of creating Snowscape Fixer. This was my first game jam.
Theme Reveal
As the theme was revealed to be "Creating Connections" my gut reaction was. 'Ooookay I'm dropping out', 'This is not something I like' ... But that's not how you pick up new skills. Not how you improve. So I started milling the theme a little bit.
What started to materialize in front of my eyes was a game set in a cozy winterscape. Kind of relaxing where you go around and fix telephone poles. Kind of a lonely but beautiful experience. Something like 'Firewatch'.
I liked the idea so I started working on my game.
Goals
Complete a game
Make something that has atmosphere
Keep it short and small scope
Learn a lot
Now these were nice goals. First jam, so definitely I had no idea what I was getting into. And also my first platformer. And the most important: I wanted to really capture this 'Firewatch'-y appeal so I wanted a definite atmosphere for my game. This really hard for me as I'm pretty bad at pixel art. (or any art for the matter of fact)
A platformer?
Looking at Pico-8 the system I'm working with and my idea I came to the simple conclusion: this will be a platformer. It only makes sense. However, this was my first platformer. I had no idea it's so hard to make a platformer feel 'good'.
I started learning about using MAP() for the tilemap and started setting up a simple collision system. I fog the basics fairly quick, however my animations were horrible and the actual platforming felt really janky.
However, I think I did an overall good job with the tileset and I was pretty happy how the game felt visually. It had this 'cozy' winter atmosphere I was going for.
It took a while to nail down all the systems. So many moving parts in a platformer. You would think that you just slap some collision detection on your player and BOOM platformer ready. NOPE.
Eventually, through some trial and error I got the systems to a point where I felt they are 'good-enough'. Not Super Meatboy or Celeste good, but okay. Good enough.
It's kind of boring
After I was happy with the actual plaforming I went on and designed 10 levels. I really liked the visuals, I loved the little 'loading' screen between levels yet I felt the game was pretty boring.
There was not much of a challenge and not horribly much to do on the levels except go up and then come down. Done.
I think I had the style nailed down but I struggled to add any enemies. For some reason, I did not think of animals for a long time. All I was thinking were traps and contraptions but they just did not fit the levels. Then it slowly came to me: boars would fit this environment perfectly. Why did I not think of this before?
So I added boars and the game became "not quite as boring". It was still not a thrilling experience BUT I wasn't going for that anyway. Remember Firewatch was a great inspiration and that game is more of a walking simulator.
In fact for the first half of the JAM I thought of my game as a walking simulator. Only after I added boars did I get the platforming to the level it is in the final release as it felt more like a platformer after that.
Short but Sweet
Gametime was still an issue. I may have kept the scope too small. 5 minutes is fine for a jam and the gameplay is kind of enough for 5 minutes. But is there any way to do more? Also is there any way to LEARN more?
Say hello to the endless mode. I was really excited to just see if I could create a level from a 16x16 matrix. That went perfectly and I could make 'infinite' levels via this matrix system. Manually of course.
So I devised a set of rules for generating levels and with some fine tuning I arrived at the final version for this jam. It is VERY VERY basic, and it certainly generates BAD levels.
No problem though you can always ask for a new level or just return to the menu.
Overall Experience
It was an amazing experience. I've learnt a lot considering scope, how quikcly I can make things and I've dipped into a genre a not particularly love and with mechanics I had no idea how to implement.
I've had tons of fun using the tilemap editor and figuring out how to set up proper collisions. It was all a very useful learning experience and at the end I'm pretty happy with the game that came out of this.
1 comment
Stop to Explode
A simple SHMUP influenced by Vampire Survivors
It may actually be more of a survivor type of game than a SHMUP.
I've created this game as my project for following the LazyDevs basic shmup tutorial.
Big shoutout to this resource, it's a great intro to Gamedev!
I've made this game as something that I would love to play on a retro handheld.
Controls
X - Shoot
O - Fireworks (Bomb, that removes all enemy bullets)
Upgrades
As it is with these types of games you'll level up a lot and you'll need these upgrades if you want to beat the later waves.
I've gone with a pretty basic upgrade path nothing crazy here - but Firerate and Damage upgrades are your best friends.
Plus! There are two 'locked' upgrades: once you max out Firerate or Damage an 'Extra Bullet' upgrade is added to the upgrade pool. This way you can have a total of 4 bullets.
If you take all upgrades then any remaining upgrade slots are replaced with '1UP' + 1 HP (not max, just 1 hp if you have one missing)
One thing to remember: once you reach max upgrade on something then it is taken out of the upgrade pool increasing the chance for all other upgrades to appear.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop is pretty simple. You go in and try not to explode. Shooting enemies down drops XP that you should collect to level up.
I've tried to make the game pretty hard BUT still completable. I'm still not sure how hard it actually is but I've managed to beat it and I'm not stellar when it comes to SHMUP/Bullet Hell games.
There are a total of 10 waves with the 10th wave being a bossfight
Credits and Info
This is actually my first ever game. All assets were created by me. It is kind of a learning project for me. I wanted to create something I enjoy and this proved a great opportunity to learn a lot about gamedev.
I hope some of you will find the game fun and it can provide a couple of minutes/hours of entertainment.
Now at V1 release I'm pretty much happy with the state of the game. Not with the codebase though. Once I learn more Pico-8 I may return to refactor and save some tokens.
Until then I'll monitor the feedback here and fix any bugs/consider any suggestions.
Changelog
V1
Tweaked difficulty
- You are now likely to get to max upgrades before the final boss
Added Boss
- Wave 10 is now a bossfight
Tweaked Typo
- Chaged typo from Wawe to Wave
V081
Tweaked upgrade selection
- It is now harder to accidentally keep pressing a button and selecting an upgrade you didn't want
Tweaked Fireworks
- You now start with the fireworks ability, but it is less powerful
- Firework upgrade now also upgrades CD + Adds extra bullets for a total of 20 bullets fired at max lvl (compared to flat 15 bullets in the original release)
Tweaked Magnet ability
- Now you start with a very small pickup range, but upgrades are more powerful. Decreased total Magnet upgrade Levels to 3 from 5 and bumped up the range. Each level increases your pickup range by 4 pixels to a maximum of 14 pixels which is a pretty big pickup range considering 128px screensize.
V08
- Initial Release
