Devlog #1 16.08.21

Brief introduction

I chose to join the jam to try the experience of making a metroidvania by myself (or at least something that can resemble it). I've been developing with GMS2 for a year now and doing game design for more than 2 years. For this game jam, it's mainly the art aspect that will be the most "problematic". I will probably try something with Illustrator which I like to use a lot.

During the game jam, I will try to focus on two aspects of the game in particular: first of all the tutorial, I would like to create a quick, efficient and simple tutorial. This will not necessarily be an easy task. And secondly the scope, with this kind of deadline I have to be careful not to think too big to get the project done.

Development of the day

After some research into the rules of the metroidvania genre, I decided to start programming fairly quickly to test my main mechanic, charged shots. The principle is quite simple, instead of having an immediate result when the player presses the shoot button, the action is only performed when the button is released. Depending on the duration of the pressure and the weapon, the shot is different (more projectiles, a bigger projectile, faster, etc...). My goal was to subject the movements to the same rule but it turned out to be quite complicated to do and especially quite unpleasant in terms of game feel. So I went back to more "classical" moves.

After several hours of work, I managed to get a prototype with a nice feeling, at least for the moment. The camera and shooting settings are temporary to adapt them later to the final level design and the enemies. I'm waiting for your feedback on this, it's very important.

Question of the day

One of my questions of the day (as mentioned above) was which AD I wanted to choose. It's important to always have the end game in mind when creating it and to be able to produce resources to facilitate continuous integration.

Conclusion

For the moment I'm quite apprehensive about this game jam, I'll have to make a schedule to respect the deadlines and have time to polish the game. I'm also trying this devlog for the first time, to see how things progress. As for the frequency of publication, it will obviously depend on the amount of work done. So I'm looking forward to your feedback on this little prototype and the devlog format, any constructive comments are greatly appreciated.

See you soon!