I decided to gamify a small book that my younger children and I created some time ago (find it here), and learn to make a game in the process, using Game Maker. The book-game is about a lonely girl and the importance of little random acts of friendship.
In addition, I needed a time frame, or I would never finish it, because I have a hard time finishing things. I decided to enter the Rainbow Jam 2017, even if I just discovered it, and never heard of game jams before (only music jams, where we improvise). I feel this jam is perfect because it has rainbows in it and a positive energy :) - and, more important, the celebration of diversity.
When ready it will be published on itch.io.
Level 2 looks like this image:
© Illustration: Celia Ascenso | Agency: Dreamstime.com
[DevLog] Lonely Girl
Day 1 - Preparing basic sprites, and the first room object placement on GameMaker while learning some basis.
Day 2 - Creating sounds to assign to objects, learning how to create/edit the sounds on Audacity, and then importing them in to the game.
Day 3 - Struggling with paths for an entire morning to make a river move. Fining how to stop sound and prevent river to fall off screen. Start to think if I should use a language system for the text, but for the jam, I think I'll left it out, too much to work on yet.
Day 4 - Creating room 2, more sounds, and implementing a game/logic thing. Starting to worry about time and how little I know about programming. --> Decision: stick to the basics.
Managed also to add room 3 and double face river asset, still 5 rooms to go (8 rooms/pages). Only images and sounds created for those.
Day 5 - created all 8 rooms, need to create only some more sprites (hands, cookie, rainbow). Note to self ---> create cookie and rainbow souds, like hummm and tlingtling.
Still needing to solve the problem about printing text and allowing to move to the next page only after some events performed on the current room.
Day's 6-7-8 - Trying to figure out a chunk o f code :P - It sucks to be stuck on a bit that seems so simple to solve, but yet, not working.
Day 8 upgrade - Solved the problem on a side test, trying to integrate it in the game without messing up all pages.
Day 9 - After hours trying to integrate the successful test, Room 1 is finished! Hooray! - Added text and arrow to go to the next room.
Work on other rooms/pages advanced a bit further.
Finished Room 2.
Day 10 - Working on text and other room mechanics.
Room 3 finished! 5 more to go.
Day 11 - got up early to finish the game because I am going away for 2 days, but got stuck on the code for one if the last rooms. Solved it, but still, I am 2 rooms from the ende. Will try to finish them tomorrow, 2 hours before the submissions end, it does not matter how buggy they appear or if they are only still rooms, because they matter to finish the story/game.
Not sure if I can add a welcome room before the game (with game start and basic rules) but it does not matter because the game is a intuitive discover-as-you-go.
Day 12 - Dying here on vacation, just want to get back hime quickly, get work done with family and home stuff, and get back to those last levels to upload game on time.
I really have a hard time with deadlines and getting projects finished!
Day 12 - 12 minutes before midnight - Was able to finish it and upload it on time. Had to forget the giggles, the rainbow and the cookie sound for the moment.
Struggling now to upload a HTML version that fits the browser. Also asking for volunteers to test an IOS version.
Hello Celia! Long time no see! Wish you all the best!
ReplyDeleteAlvera
Thank you, my friend, wishing you the same :)
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