I said I'd make an official TP'n'G post, so here we are! (I think it's taken me like, an hour and a half. Maybe a lot longer. Thinking things through is hard...)

Tools

• Coding/Game Engine: Godot - first time user!
• Art: Most likely a combination of MS Paint and Paint.net, assuming Godot doesn't have a built-in editor like GameMaker. Even then, I'll probably still make things in MS Paint then import it to tweak it around. That's just how I roll.
• Music: Either LMMS, Tonnoform by @nikos, or Audacity if I'm feelin' a bit cheeky! (And by cheeky, I mean some type of a cappella shenanigans.) Maybe some combination of the three if I need that kind of feel?
• Other audio: Freesound.org and/or Audacity.

Plans

• Today (4/15):
  • Make this post (:whitecheckmark:)
  • Start brainstorming basic game concepts for the finalist themes
  • Work on a quick warm-up game to get used to Godot + learn how to export web build & put it on itch.io
  • See if I can focus past the Jam Hype enough to get some homework out of the way
• Tomorrow (4/16):
  • Brainstorm more concepts for the finalist themes
  • Finish up the warm-up game if I haven't yet
  • Get more homework outta the way
• Day 1 (4/17):
  • Brainstorm more and/or flesh out my favorite ideas while waiting for the theme announcement
  • Maybe homework
  • After theme announcement, extra flesh out my idea(s) for that theme
  • Start streaming coding (twitch.tv/papabirb), try to finish basic Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Day 2 (4/18):
  • Start streaming (twitch.tv/papabirb)
  • Finish MVP if I didn't on Day 1
  • Gameplay bug fixes
  • Work on audio/visual polish
  • A/V bug fixes
  • If I finish early, set it aside to sit for a bit and relax/homework/whatever
• Day 3 (4/19):
  • Start streaming (twitch.tv/papabirb)
  • Finish it up or give it some extra playtesting/polish
  • Squash any new polish-related bugs
  • Hopefully upload it by compo deadline!
  • If it's uploaded, start the play'n'rate grind!
  • (Also, homework)
• Day 4 (4/20):
  • (blaze it)
  • Start streaming (twitch.tv/papabirb)
  • If I wasn't able to finish by Combo, hurry through whatever I can between virtual classes & upload jam ASAP
  • If I did finish by compo, start play'n'rating games between classes!
  • (Also, homework)

Goals

• Create a hopefully accessible game (browser build, colorblind-friendly, possibly a voiceover)
• Force myself to finish gameplay before polish (as an artist, I've got a bad habit of overly polished programmer art)
• Rank top 100 overall
• Rank top 10 in at least one category (preferably humor or fun, I just want to make people smile!)

It's like social media, but good. There's no notification spam about people liking your posts, only notifications for when someone @'s you and when the people you follow post. I don't know if there's notifications for following people, but there's no way to see how many people/who follows you. There's no pressure, no personal page to worry about appearances of. Sucks you can't delete posts, admittedly, or change your username without making a new account. But I love this good, wholesome, no pressure social media community vibe. Mike should invent a new and improved twitter/facebook/tumblr, which is just this infrastructure but less game dev themed specifically.

Anyway, that's my sentimental 4:48 am post before I sleep. Got too tired/hyped to do anything after brainstorming, but I got down at least one idea for every potential theme, even if they aren't necessarily good ones. The love of my life helped chip in a few ideas for some themes, too.

Determined from the documentation that Godot doesn't have a built-in sprite editor like GMS2 (a real pity), and instead must be imported from a spritesheet. Thus, working on the exactly 2 art assets I want for my warmup. Completed the hardest one (the only animation): Based on a knock-off Fred from Scooby-doo from this episode of Drawfee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I__kNAcG1es Now to work on the only other sprite, taken from the same episode. After that, time to learn Godot!

Where exactly is the best place to host your source code, anyway? Also, with Godot, would the "source code" be a project file/folder the way it's suggested for GameMaker games?

Been trying to work with Godot on a warm-up game. GDScript is ridiculously hard to learn if you don't already know it - someone makes an online post asking about something, and the answers seem to make sense to those people who already know GDScript. The official documentation and tutorials leave a LOT to be desired. I'm confused and frustrated and I don't think I can learn it in time for the jam starting in 4 hours. I want to like Godot and I want to be able to make a browser game without popping extra $$$ on GMS2's web export module, but it looks like I'll be making another Windows-only build this time around. Maybe I'll be able to buy the web export module before the next jam I take part in, I don't know. Or have time to learn Godot properly over the summer, not that I really feel driven to with its current lackluster documentation. How can you have tutorials that are so in depth, but also so confusing? How is it possible to have so many good examples but such awful documentation??? It's baffling.

Anyway, guess I'm abandoning the warm-up game. Need to de-stress for the next 4 hours til the theme announcement so I don't abandon the jam altogether from a Depressive Episode :tm:. Back to my original plans before I decided to try out Godot: good ol' GMS2.

It's gone now, but everything was broken for a bit. :shrug:

A lot of brainstorming happened, but no real progress was made until I resolved a conflict with my love. He was bothered that I was giving up too fast on something I cared about a lot - making a browser game for the jam, using Godot.

And it felt like quitting when I decided to stick with what I know. Making my game accessible is more important to me than my rating goals. Making my games accessible is an important core of who I want to be. I want everyone to be able to enjoy my games, regardless of platform or disability. Admittedly, I'm not sure the perfect accessible game exists - I need the time to research how to make games for blind people, for example.

So, in following @datadazer 's advice, I'm going to focus on learning Godot with a really, really simple game. One screen, two buttons. Basic built-in UI elements. Approximately mobile dimensions?

So I'm going back to Godot, although I don't know if I have the mental fortitude for streaming the devwork as intended while learning a new engine. I'll still stream game playing/rating at the end, though.

Anyway, let the evil seeds of what you've done germinate within you, alongside this paper mockup of my idea (inspired by all the quarantined people on twitter suddenly developing the urge to make sourdough this year):

the only art assets I need!

Time to get a snack and hit the sack!

I just want to playtest my game in browser build, not be stuck in downloading hell for a 434.2 MiB html5 export template. I don't even know how big that is (I'm bad with understanding file sizes) but it must be bigger than most files I download that are usually like, instant, or a few minutes tops.

Guess it's break time.

I managed to get a working html5 build but the whole 'restricted' setting on itch.io pages just wants me to give people download keys which download the game instead of going to the page, which is silly for a browser game. I want to be able to test it on my phone and other browsers without signing in to my account.

The rules don't say it's illegal to host your game before it's ready for submission anyway, so I assume itch.io playtesting is okay, and I need to see how it runs on other platforms since this is new for me and all.

On my friends' computers and on my phone, my playtesting build is loading in the top left of the game canvas, embed, thing. It's still playable-sized on PC, but it's stamp-sized on mobile devices. I can't find anything on Google about it, so I'm probably using the wrong keywords.

As an example, here's a screenshot of my page on mobile in desktop mode (it happens in mobile mode too):

I'll make another post when ratings start, but I'm done!!! Woooo!!!!!

Boyfriend (my playtester) was playing my game while I was asleep, suggested slowing the music down to a stop instead of just abruptly ending it because the death felt like "is the game bugged??" to him. Looked it up, found out it wasn't hard to pitch shift the song to death, so added that in as some quick last-minute polish! Good luck with your games, everyone!

Time to show the fun screenshots and gif now!! Play&Rate Feed Your Starter!!! here! (especially @curiouslycory since you played it before the ratings were up!)

I'm planning on streaming the play+rate process either tomorrow night when the Jam ends or on Tuesday when I don't have any classes. If anyone wants to watch me play their game, drop me the links to your game pages here so I can @ you in a post when I start streaming!

Seems like whenever I can get the comment section to load on a game that isn't mine, it says "sign in to comment" even though I'm already signed in. Is the site just too active right now? Man, with so many people worldwide in the jam rating and playing and commenting on games, how do you even know when the "least active" time to do stuff is, lol.

Glad the commenting issue's fixed now, but seeing blog posts linked made me realize the post urls are related to the game you posted, lol. I like it, it lets you look back at older blog posts and see what game they were connected to (which I just tested by scrolling down my profile to a post from my first LD). Glad it extends to the pre-submission posts, too, so you can see what jam people were working on.

i am easily swayed by seeing members of a school club discord choosing to participate so hopefully this can be a successful attempt at seeing the jam through for a third time!

Not ideal theme... "Vague and open ended" themes never do good for me, 1 word themes are like starting with colored construction paper instead of a blank white page: still empty and uninspiring.

I, too, thought of "un stable" for horses, like an unbirthday... But I had a much better idea while discussing one of the posts on here with my boyfriend. Thanks for the inspiration, person or people who mentioned dragons with the flu... (It's not a dragon game, but I got inspired by the fire breathing.)