Building the Game

When I started the game, it was as part of a small local game jam hosted by Dark Rabbit Studios. So small in fact, that the other few entrants did not submit a project and my game won by default. I got a nice copy of Robert Nystrom's Game Programming Patterns as a prize.

I certainly wasn't expecting to get the win so easily, though. For one solid week I put in a great amount of effort planning, designing, and making nearly every aspect from scratch.

Game Jam hosted by @DrkRabbitStudio - End of Day 1 results. The theme is "Fork". #gamedev https://t.co/zl3qW2hQfc
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 22, 2018

via Gfycat

Day 1 consisted of me brainstorming ideas around the theme, and settling on a platformer where the player fights giant food monsters. So I set about getting that started. I quickly put together some placeholders, built my character, armed him with a giant fork, and gave him some dummies to stab. I also put in a few debug options so I could visualize what's going on behind the scenes.

End of Day 2 progress on "Fork" Game Jam hosted by @DrkRabbitStudio #gamedevhttps://t.co/ugYDm2vDdW
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 23, 2018

via Gfycat

I knew if I wanted to finish within the one week time period, I had to be very methodical about how I worked. Each day started with me plotting out what I was going to get done by the end of that day; which feature or asset needed to be added and so on. Day 2 I wanted to flesh out the concept of the game a bit more. Dummies were replaced with food enemies that could attack the player. The player had to take damage when hit. The player regained life points when an enemy defeated. I also drew all the sprites by hand!

There was also one more thing I had to consider, how could I diversify the game even more? I came up with the idea of having an attack multiplier based on the player's remaining health, in addition to some contextual flavor text to add to the cartoony style I started to develop.

Not as much progress as I hoped on Day 3 of the "Fork" game jam by @DrkRabbitStudio, but certainly satisfactory since all of the hard stuff should be done now. Today's focus was making and implementing animations & some aesthetics. Tomorrow, levels! https://t.co/pIRqDpCZ5n
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 24, 2018

via Gfycat

I spent the bulk of the 3rd day hand drawing animations and fleshing out character details a bit more, and then making sure those all worked smoothly in game. Also I added a couple environmental aesthetics. I think I'm most satisfied with how the player character animations turned out. I tried to convey running  around with & swinging  the weight of the giant, ungainly fork as accurately as I could in as few frames as possible.

Bugs are an unfortunate part of #gamedev, spent a lot of time trying to get them sorted. Scaling back to just one level so I have time to polish other areas. So ends Day 4 in the "Fork" game jam by @DrkRabbitStudio. https://t.co/l6lOLRNQ6y
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 25, 2018

via Gfycat

The 4th day was spent laying out the whole level, as well as making the various elements it needed. Somewhere along the line were some bugs that got introduced, namely with the player physics & object culling behind the scenes. I lost a couple hours on that, but I had to push through. Eventually I got those sorted out a couple months later, long after the game jam.

No video for Day 5 of the "Fork" game jam by @DrkRabbitStudio. I made the boss fight for Level 1, so don't want to spoil it, but as of now the entire level is completable. Last full day will be focused on adding sound effects, improving some visuals, optimization. #gamedev
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 26, 2018

Spent the 5th day designing, animating, and making the everything for the end level boss battle. The boss' design inspired the title of the game, if that wasn't made obvious!

Closing out Day 6 of the "Fork" game jame by @DrkRabbitStudio. Added title & credit screens, some fancy fonts, and a bunch of sound effects. Tomorrow is submission day; will focus on optimization & finalization. #gamedev
— Geddon@G&R Gaming (@darth_geddon) July 27, 2018

The last day before the deadline was spent on polish. If my style, design, and gameplay wasn't already enough to make my game standout, I certainly wanted the game to feel like it was a finished product. Even if it was only one level.

The final hours on submission day were spent trying to iron out bugs, making some minor gameplay adjustments, and compiling the game. I uploaded it here on itch.io and submitted the link to Dark Rabbit Studio's Discord server. I anxiously waited to see other entrant's submissions, or hear from one of the staff, but all I got back that day was silence.

The next day was the July meetup for Indie City Games. This was one of my main motivators for entering the game jam. I wanted to make something I could show to other local indie devs, and that's just what I did! I felt accomplished for having followed through, and now I have a pet project to keep me motivated in completing my first full-length game. On my way home I got the message that the owner of Dark Rabbit Studios played my game and really enjoyed the concept. And of course that apparently nobody else submitted a game, meaning I won.

So now I keep chipping away, making improvements and adding new features of Noodly Appendages as I can. The plan is to finish the remainder of the game by the end of 2018. See you then!