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[micalpixel]

May Game - February 2025 Progress Report

Another month has passed! Here's the progress report on my game for February 2025!

Ability Ramifications

Towards the end of January, the gameplay underwent a major change: the main character (May) would now have two abilities: jumping, and whistling. She could now jump over (most) enemies. And she can whistle to "stun" most enemies. These would complement the game's cozy nonviolent theme. And gave players more agency and options than just "walk around the enemies."

This change had major ramifications:

Enemies had to be re-balanced with stunning and jumping in mind.

The game needed a tutorial where these abilities could be taught.

All maps needed to be reworked (ie, deep water was no longer impassable - May could now jump over water.)

The game could be a bit longer, since these abilities will keep the gameplay fresher for longer.

Due to #2 and #4, the world map has been enlarged (from 6x6 rooms to 8x8). The old world map (shown below, in an unfinished state) was no longer needed.

I've been working on the above throughout February, and oh it's been a lot. I started calling this "Version 0.3" internally, because it's such a different game now. "Version 0.2" lasted about a week - a period where jumping and stunning was possible, but not Bits - another major change which is discussed below:

Bits

Since May cannot kill enemies, and therefore, cannot collect "spoils" from them, this game lacked a collecting-mechanic that is common to lots of games similar to this. This also meant backtracking was not going to be fun. If you got nothing from dealing with all those enemies again, then it would be repetitive and tedious.

So, I added Bits: A currency. Bits look like tiny green squares. They can appear in the following two main ways:

1. Static Bits. Maps will have lots of Bits sprinkled around the ground, similar to coins in Mario or gems in Spyro. Once a Bit is collected, it's yours, and won't appear in that spot again. Some Bits will be easy to collect, some harder. You don't need to get them all, but you do need to get a bunch to beat the game. There are several kinds of static Bits:

Regular: Just walk into it to collect it.

Floaty: You must jump to collect it.

Deadly: You must whistle at it turn it onto a Regular Bit, then you can collect it.

Deadly Floaty: You must whistle at it, AND jump to get it.

2. Random Bits: Enemies will sometimes spawn with a Bit on them:

If a Bit is on an enemy's head, you can jump over the enemy to get it.

If a Bit is afflicting the enemy, you can whistle at it to get the Bit off of them.

Bits should make maps must more fun to explore, and let players decide whether which ones are worth getting or not.

Playable Demo

I started working on a demo to use for an initial internal playtesting period. This will consist of about 1/2 the final game. Enough to get feedback on the gameplay and initial impressions from playtesters. All of the following were worked on in February towards that end:

Created a new 8x8-room overworld concept map, with general layouts, plus a new list of all other maps and their layouts.

The underground cave tileset was improved significantly.

Lots of changes to the overworld tileset (especially tall grass, water, and dirt paths)

An indoor house tileset was added.

Started working on a "garden" tileset.

Lots of changes to main quests, NPCs, and sidequests.

Lots of bugfixes.

Switched to Godot 4.4.rc1 for the game engine, to make sure everything still works before they do an official release.

Improved the minimap.

Overhauled the main village area to be 3x3 rooms in size, including a tutorial on abilities and enemies.

TL;DR The concept layouts for maps are basically done, and now I need to put them in the game, add the updated enemies and NPCs, and quests. The game's world can be fully explored, but it's very bare.

This has been a very productive month for me, which seems crazy because it's also been very stressful for other reasons. But being able to work on this game in the afternoons has been very calming yet energizing.

Games Played In February

I continue to try new games for inspiration:

Spyro Reignited: Spyro 2 and 3: Solid games and very relaxing 3D platformers. Spyro's abilities give these games a very different feel from many other 3D platformers, where jumping is the main focus. But here, it's more about charging, flame breath, and gliding. It's nice.

Chico and the Magic Orchards DX: A short but sweet GameBoy-Color themed game about a squirrel who rolls a large walnut around to solve puzzles. I love the GameBoy, and squirrels, so this was a must-play. :D

Song of Nunu: A story-driven 3D-puzzle-platformer. Made by the same devs as RiME - another game I enjoyed. Despite being a spinoff game, this game is very, VERY good. A lot of love and care went into it, and the result is beautiful. If you like puzzle-platformer games, especially ones with dual-protagonists like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, or you like Ghibli-like stories about a kid and their magic beast friend, you'll like this too.

Ending

That's my February dev log. Thanks for reading! I am hoping that the demo-version of this game will be in a playable state by the end of March, but we'll see.

[micalpixel]

May Game - March 2025 Devlog

Hello again! Another month has passed, so it's time for another monthly devlog!

Story and Quests

As mentioned in the last devlog, I was not satisfied with the main quests in my game. They felt forgettable, too fetch-quest-y, and felt disconnected from the game's world and lore.

There's been a lot of improvement in that regard. I'm currently planning to have 3 main quests ready for the game's first playtest. I've fleshed out the characters on paper and made their quests feel more relevant, and hopefully fun.

I also decided to increase the final game's quest count from 6 to 8. Originally, I planned for the game to have just one dungeon-y quest. But I've found that an overworld where backtracking is commonplace isn't a great place to put challenging enemies or complex puzzles. So, I'm adding two dungeons and moving a lot of the ideas into those. This will make things feel less cramped from me trying to cram so many ideas into a single dungeon.

State Machines

I reworked the game's characters and objects to use state machines. Each object now has exactly one "state" at all times. Standing, walking, idle, frozen, thawing, etc.

Previously, this was all handled with...a lot of if/else checks. 😅 State machines make it much easier to change their states during cutscenes. And it lets me divide up their code so that each state's functionality is in one place (typically two functions - one that runs per-frame, and one to initialize the state whenever it changes).

Enemies can now be frozen by your whistle ability. And after a while, they will start to thaw out. Two states, both of which now have custom visuals which are similar for all enemy types.

Text

The game's text box has been a source of annoyance for a while. The game's resolution is only 160x144. And I'd hoped to keep text aligned to 8-pixel lines to mimic the limitations of old game consoles (especially the Game Boy). But I want to have realistic dialogue and meaningful conversations. Having just two lines of text makes that very hard. And there wasn't a good way to easily convey who is speaking, in cases where multiple characters are onscreen. I suspect this is why, on many old games, the protagonist is silent and conversations with more than 1 other character were uncommon. But that feels too limiting for me.

So, I ditched the tile-aligned text limitation. I also added a sprite on the text box to indicate who's speaking. Also trotted out an old 3x5 pixel font I made last year but never found a use for, to indicate their name. And I like it! A lot.

With the text box now in a good place, I feel much more comfortable working on the game's cutscenes now, since I have a better grasp of what the text box's limitations are.

The text boxes also changed from a parchment-style to a wooden-block-style. This fit their new tabbed look a bit better. Cursors were also changed to pink arrows, since the pink protagonist is the one technically making those decisions.

Graphics

Lots of graphics received overhauls:

May's walk animations were updated yet AGAIN. In particular, the sun's highlights in her hair are toned down, and her side-sprites no longer have her shoulders appear so far behind her head. I wanted to get this feeling right before I start making other NPCs in the same style.

The forest area, and garden area, now have their own unique look (see the first 2screenshots in this post).

Colors were consolidated for many things. Lots of sprites used similar but different colors, making them all looks kinda off. Part of this is due to their graphics being made at different points in time, when palettes were different. In such cases, they now use the same colors.

Tall grass now covers May's feet when she walks through it (and slows her down too). This mechanic will be used to make some areas more difficult. Tall grass is harder to navigate. Areas that constantly change from tall to short grass will be even harder.

Next Steps

The current goal is to have an internal playtest with half the game's quests in a polished, complete-able stage. Current things on my mind for this:

Finish the scenes, NPCs, and maps needed for those quests (and the tutorial area too).

Add a nice-looking title screen. And reveal the game's name! 🥲

Add whatever other menus are needed.

And finally, music and sound effects. 😵 I haven't started on this yet (other than a blip-sound when text is displayed). This will probably take the longest...

Thank you for reading! I hope you have a great rest of your day!

[micalpixel]

May Flowers Game - June 2024 Progress Report

Another month has passed, so here’s another update on my gamedev journey. The goal is to create my first video game using the Godot game engine.

(Prior Updates: May, Initial)

Research

The main goal for June was research. Play other character/exploration-focused games with no farming or combat elements and see what they do to keep things fun. Here’s what I played (or watched others play)

A Short Hike: A game about a penguin climbing a mountain. Finding new people, new areas, and moving/gliding were very enjoyable. The game’s 3D environment with pixelated graphics was also a new experience for me. A very nice cozy game.

Rakuen: I love this game. You play as a kid stuck in a hospital, trying to help other sick patients, while also exploring a fantasy world described in a book. Lots of exploration, puzzles, and focus on characters. Catchy music too. Kind of exactly what I was looking for. I think Undertale fans would enjoy this one.

The Stanley Parable: A choose-your-own-adventure game. No NPCs, just movement and a very entertaining and well-crafted narrator.

Potion Permit: You play as a chemist who just moved into a town, and must make a living brewing potions while getting to know the town, its people, and the wilderness. The first life-sim game I’ve actually beaten. The lack of time limits was greatly appreciated.

Shenmue (Watched not Played): An important piece of gaming history. I watched a playthrough of this one, just so I could see this game at its best, and not miss any important events.

Freddi Fish 2 (Watched not Played): A point-and-click adventure for children??!… What’s this doing here?!?! Well, this one wasn’t on my original list, but I realized the point-and-click game genre had many similarities with the walk/talk/trade-items gameplay I originally envisioned. Plus this one had no game-overs and no frustrating trial-and-error like many do. Studying how a different genre handled that kind of gameplay, while making it very accessible and entertaining, was a good learning experience.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (WIP): I started this one, more for fun than research, but haven’t finished it yet. Beautiful game. As others have noted, it’s like playing a Pixar movie.

OneShot (Not Started Yet): Ran out of time. 😒 Next month. Really looking forward to this one.

All in all, I took 10 pages of notes. Things I noticed, liked, disliked, wanted to think about.

Prototype

On June 20, I began work on an actual prototype (“Prototype 1”). Code from my earlier Godot projects was collected, combined, and improved. The goal is to implement every important mechanic in the game. Everything the player should be able to DO in the game, the prototype should have at least ONE place where the player can do it. In a very condensed environment that's easy to test. Physics and graphics can be fine-tuned later. This prototype is all about functionality. For example:

Walk in 8 directions.

Talk to an NPC.

Choose an answer when the NPC asks a question which triggers different outcomes.

Walk to the edge of a room and appear in an adjacent room.

And overall, things have gone very well! I have a page-long checklist of everything I want to implement in this prototype, and it’s about half-done. :D

Except menus.

And except puzzles.

Puzzle mechanics aren’t added yet. I realized the mechanics I was planning did not have much synergy and were very simple. I also want to review the notes I took during research and study puzzles in general. So, back to the drawing board, for now. Puzzles are the next major step. And I think I have a pretty good idea how I want to change them.

Audio

I made a text-blip sound effect (hear it in the video above) and a placeholder “song” of 6 notes to use for testing music. Since this game’s art style is based on the Game Boy, I did some research on the Game Boy’s sound capabilities.

It has four “instruments” that can play sounds simultaneously, aka “channels”:

Channel 1 and 2: Pulse Channel. Each can emit a quadrangular wave

Channel 3: “Wave” channel with user-definable waveform

Channel 4: A noise wave (think static)

Channel 3 is the most fascinating imo. You can define your own timbre of the sound to be played. If you ever played a Game Boy game that had a unique-sounding song that, chances are it was a custom waveform via this channel. (Also, if you ever played Mother 3, the movie theater part with the retro-sounding music did in fact use the original Game Boy audio capabilities in the Game Boy Advance, and also includes these sounds.)

There is software that can reproduce the capabilities described above in order to create Game Boy-sounding music on a PC. I’d like to experiment with that in the coming weeks. The Game Boy was capable of some really good music. Limiting my scope to its capabilities for the same of my own sanity, plus the flexibility of that wave channel to create custom sounds, seems like it can produce some really nice results, which is very appealing to me.

Graphics

I made a font! It only includes English letters, for now, but it works! I used it in the “Save Pointy” art earlier this week and the prototype video above, and intend to use it for everything going forward.

Closing

And that’s June! Have a nice July, everyone!

[micalpixel]

Added an Art Blog

I now have two tumblr blogs.

@micalpixel-art is where I will post any standalone artwork that I made, plus reposts of other peoples' art (especially Undertale).

@micalpixel will be focused on game development, but I will also repost my own art there too. Whichever kind of content you're interested in, you can now follow just that blog. ^^

[micalpixel]

May Game - January 2025 Progress Report

Hello everyone! Another month has gone! Here's my May-game gamedev progress report for January 2025!

"Ideal Room"

I posted about the design philosophy for this game, and what an "ideal room" should be like, and finally made one.

First visit: Analyze the room, figure out its puzzles/enemies, and "solve" it to proceed.

Later visits: Room is familiar, easier.

Include optional harder content, ie flowers.

In short, there will be *some* backtracking, as well as a focus on making the game pretty accessible to everyone, but with optional harder content for those who want more of a challenge.

Object Code Consolidation

In preparation for working on enemies' code, I consolidated all ingame objects to be sub-classes of one of three types: Area2D, StaticBody2D and CharacterBody2D (all Godot node types). Each one had built-in support for my scripting engine. This would make working on enemies much easier.

I also overhauled and documented the collision layers which the game needed as part of this work.

Enemy Design

A lot of work went into enemy designs this month. Basic visuals, their ingame behavior, making tables of how they differ (pros and cons, situational differences), and so on. I coded up what was the then-current lies of enemies, and made a video to show them off. The player's goal, at this point, was simple: Just stay out of their way. And uh... That increasingly felt like it wasn't good enough...

Uncertainties

On and off through this month, I felt unsatisfied with the direction of the game.

NPCs felt too detached from the world. They existed for their quests and that was it. They never commented on the unusual way enemies work in the game. They felt kinda forgettable. The quests didn't feel connected to any meaningful lore, either. They didn't make me want to explore or know more about this little world.

Enemies felt boring. Different, but boring. It was neat that they could interact with some puzzle elements. But they still felt rigid, like there weren't enough ways to present the same enemy without it getting repetitive. I prototyped some dungeon ideas, and the end result was just cramming more and more enemies into room to make them feel new and/or harder. I didn't like it.

May also felt boring. To play as. She could walk around enemies, maybe find a switch that would change some things nearby, and that's it. I'd originally wanted to give her some abilities, but had scaled those back in order to make a simpler, smaller game that I could finish more quickly.

These things combined, and the game didn't just feel like a scaled-back first-game. It felt incomplete. It felt wrong. Like this was going to be a bad game.

Here's an example of brainstorming room designs. It looks crowded and repetitive, doesn't it? I was probably a bit frustrated when this was made, due to not having answers to any of the problems above.

Two games I played for the first time this month helped give some perspective. One was the first few levels of The Adventures of Lolo 3. A top-down puzzle game which features a small number of enemies and puzzle objects, but a (brutally hard and) shocking amount of depth. This game required defeating enemies. But you had options. You could go around enemies, block them using other enemies, freeze them, push them, and blow them away. This game gave you options. It had player agency. Mine didn't.

I also played the first Spyro game. Spyro has two abilities for dispatching enemies: Breathe Fire and Charge. That's it. Every enemy can be beaten with one of them. Even the collectibles were such that you often had to use one of those abilities to get them. There was a sense of flow to knowing which one to use and when - a rhythm - which my game lacked.

And I went back to the drawing board.

Overhauls

I made a new spreadsheet of enemies. This time, mapping out different ways they could be overcome. All could be overcome by going around them - if the room allowed it. But now, I added numerous other ways. And some enemies were immune to some of those ways. Learning their strengths and weaknesses, and learning when to take advantage of them, would be an aspect of gameplay which wasn't there before. New enemies were added. Some repurposed. Some marked for possible scrappage.

I also decided to give May two abilities which compliment the idea of enemy-avoidance. This adds depth to the gameplay, and player agency, but more challenges for me, too. Giving May/the player more options means enemies need to be re-balanced around those options, so the game doesn't become too easy.

So May now has two abilities, but how to train the player to use them? The four-screen starting area is too small to do that effectively. Combine this with the detached-NPC problem above, and it felt clear that the map needed to be overhauled, and in all likelihood made larger. But not too much.

So, the current plan is to work more on the game's lore and improving the quests, expand and make mockups of all maps, including enemy placement, and see how it goes. ^^

Here's an updated, post-overhaul dungeon brainstorming. Looks a bit more thoughtful, imo.

Games I've Played this Month

OneShot - Solstice Ending - Me, leave Niko hanging? Pffft. Naw. This was a nice little bow of an ending for a wonderful little game. Programmers especially can relate to it. :D Although, honestly. I don't think I'll ever play OneShot again. To be clear, it's an excellent game. However, the final moments of the ending wrapped things up so nicely, that to play it again...just wouldn't be the same. Niko is home now. My Niko is home now. To summon another, different Niko just wouldn't feel right. How could I play it again?

Mega Man X - A GOAT game for my favorite games console (the SNES), which is so good at teaching its mechanics through gameplay that it is used in game development courses. So why did it take a SNES lover and gamedev like me so long to play it? Weeellll.... because Mega Man 2 kicked my butt years ago. Very painfully. But in X, the difficulty is the point. It's part of the story. You're supposed to feel weak and incompetent. Suddenly, the main character is very relatable, which made the game more enjoyable. It really is a great game.

A Highland Song - A side-scroller hill-running mountain-climbing game filled with Scotland locations, characters, history, and folklore. Highly recommended!

Spyro the Dragon - It's cool to finally experience the PSone era of 3D platformers. It's a bit on the easy side, but sometimes that's all you really want. Makes 100%ing it much more enjoyable too.

Thank you for reading - see you next month!

[micalpixel]

May Game - December 2024 Progress Report

Another month, another game dev update post on my game featuring my character, May!

Last time, I noted that the game was playable from start to finish, in terms of who to talk to and where to go. But there were no enemies or puzzles, and the game needed them.

Puzzles

I added our first puzzle object: torches that could be lit and extinguished. Each one could trigger a script to cause things to happen depending on which torches are lit. Needs better graphics, but the mechanic works. I'm not sure if I'll add other kinds of puzzle objects for this game. I want it to be small in scope, and I think these torches already have a lot of potential to keep things interesting.

(View Video)

Enemies

The game's first enemy was added, and is in a pretty polished state. It can force the player to respawn, or be itself respawned, if it is spawn-camping. It can move around, will stop and watch the player if they're nearby, and has an idle jumping animation. It's cuter now than its initial concept, which had more of a horror-alien vibe, which felt out of place in a cozy game.

(View Video)

Other Additions

May (the protagonist) got "dying" and respawning animations in which she sinks into/rises up from the ground. Her other animations also got some minor touch-ups (hair is more animated, arms are less stiff).

An overlay (or "vignette") was added which features blue and black sludge, and is shown when the player is dying/respawning to communicate that the protagonist cannot currently be controlled.

Map transitions were added. Previously, all map changes happened instantly. But now, there are two. One for smoothly scrolling to an adjacent area. And an iris effect for entering/leaving buildings.

(View Video)

Dialogue boxes can now contain more than 2 lines of text, and will scroll to reveal more text.

A slow-tile was added, which reduces player speed.

I removed all the "front door" objects inside buildings. Now, maps can instead indicate which sides are "doors", triggering an iris effect when May touches them. Basically overriding the adjacent-map behavior in overworld maps.

Lots of code consolidation and bug fixes. In particular, May now inherits from the same base class as almost all other objects, meaning a lot less code duplication.

Games I've Beaten this Month

Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii) - An excellent 2D platformer and a great successor to Donkey Kong Country. The game has many levels of challenge for all kinds of players. You can just complete the levels. OR also get the KONG letters. OR also get the puzzle pieces. OR Complete the time trials - bronze, silver or gold. And then finally mirror levels. Whatever your skill level, you'll find a sweet spot that's not too easy and not too difficult. It's great.

Lost in Shadow (WiiWare) - A very unique puzzle game that involves manipulating 3D space in order to alter the 2D shadows they cast, which you can actually traverse. Later on, you'll find levels that have you climbing large 3D objects where you must alter light sources to jump between four different shadow-objects it cases, plus navigating its 3D space as well. The platforming and swordplay felt like the original 2D Prince of Persia games. The atmosphere felt a lot like Ico. Fascinating puzzles, though I do wish the game had fewer mandatory levels and more optional ones, due to how large and numerous they are.

Secrets of Grindea - I played this one co-op with my brother. If you like Secret of Mana, and you love spell and ability customizations, and are prepared for some challenging bullet-hell boss fights, then you'll enjoy this too. Every single character in the game has a full character portrait, which is a nice touch and rare sight to see.

Next Steps

I have begun working on other enemy designs. This is going to be a small game. But still, I have some ideas for synergy with puzzle objects that should make things a bit more interesting. Once all the enemy and puzzle mechanics are thought out, I'll be in a better position to start designing actual rooms.

Closing

I joined the Bluesky social networking site at the end of November, and have been posting a lot of clips and such to Bluesky since this month started. I like the format. Game dev can often require a lot of work for even small features. Having a platform that's great at sharing small things has been very nice. It's also been great being able to connect with so many other devs and see what they're working on. Lots of neat and inspiring things here. Bluesky has been great! (And my Steam wishlist has gotten a lot longer in the past month!)

So, this is the last dev log for 2024, so it feels appropriate to put something to summarize the year, too.

Work on this game began on May 1, 2024. At the time, I had no experience with Godot. I'd never used a game engine, and I'd never released a game of my own. It's been a thrilling eight months. Not without some low points. But my enthusiasm for this project is still just as high as it was at the start, if not higher. I'm so happy to be making this game! And I want 2025 to be the year that I finish it. That's it. That's my #1 goal for the year.

Thanks for your interest and support! Happy New Year, and I'll see you in January!

[micalpixel]

Link's Awakening Sprite Study

I grabbed several of the character sprites from The Spriters' Resource for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, and Oracle of Ages in order to take a closer look at how the animations work. (Thanks to "Mister Mike" and "TAILSSBS" for ripping these.)

And it's fascinating just how much variety there is with so few pixels to work with. Take a look at each characters' eyes and how they move. Look at each characters' fists and how they move. Whether the characters rotate from side-to-side, or bob up and down, or barely move at all. And try to see what each of these differences communicate about each character and their poses, and why the artist chose them.

I'd gone into this exercise to see what sort of rules were followed here - what they all have in common. And there are many similarities which separate this style from those of other games. But I wasn't expecting so many differences. I counted at least 9 different ways characters moved their hands - and that's just the human characters. And just the ones that are "regular-sized". To say nothing of the larger character sprites on the right. (Who, just like in yesterday's post, sometimes have more than 4 total colors because they consist of multiple sprites overlaid with each other.)

This was an informative exercise.

I really liked the Phonograph man in the bottom-right too. Love how animated the phonograph's horn is, in order to communicate that it's playing.

And also, it's now much clearer to me why Link mistook Marin for Zelda in Link's Awakening. I mean seriously those two look EXTREMELY similar. The "Seasons" girl above Marin also looks like she was heavily based on Marin's design too.

[micalpixel]

NES Sprites with 5+ Colors

So, while I was studying pixel art styles on video game consoles with 2-bit colors (IE, 2^2 = 4 colors per sprite), I noticed something interesting. With Earthbound Beginnings' sprites, most of the NPCs have, as expected, four colors. Three actual colors, plus a fully transparent "color".

But there was something funny about a couple of them, including the main character...

There's FIVE colors??!

Yeah, let's see:

Black

Peach

Red

Blue

Transparent Pixels (no color)

How is this possible? The NES has strict memory limitations. Only four possible colors per sprite, and one had to be transparent.

So, I loaded it up in an emulator and pulled up the sprite-viewing window.

What's going on here?

Hmm.....

Hey, wait a minute!

It's four separate sprites y'all. XD

They used four separate smaller sprites, with the top two having four colors and the bottom two with four slightly different colors. Which gives them five colors for what seems like a single larger sprite.

Math checks out.

Very clever.

[micalpixel]

May Flowers Game - May 2024 Progress Report

The first version of May's front-walking sprite. And 9 revisions.

So, it’s been a month since I decided to seriously start making a video game. To help keep myself accountable, here’s a progress report.

I’ve posted five things since then, all done towards that end.

Game Concept Art – Set the art direction and basic plot.

Walking Animations – Set the main character’s design. I’ve done some touch-ups since then, and will probably do more.

Kicking a Ball – Use Godot 4 and the images created above to make an actual tech demo “game” and export it to the web. This was a big leap for me. I’m ecstatic some people were able to play it and apparently enjoyed it too.

Eastward Animated Scene – Made a cutscene scripting engine and used it to create a small cutscene, in an art style similar to what I’m going for.

A Hat in Time Animated Scene – Modified the scripting engine above with better handling of concurrent actions. And physics.

Additionally:

I joined the community for the Godot game engine and have been participating in several discussions, learning things along the way.

I joined a local Indie GameDev group in my area and have been participating in meetings and chats.

Overall, I’m thrilled with how May has gone. I’ve struggled so much with procrastination and fear of failure in the past, but this month things have somehow finally clicked.

So, what next?

Well, I haven’t done much on the actual game’s design. I initially wanted this May Flowers game to be just SOMETHING. To get SOMETHING done. But unfortunately, May has grown on me and somehow graduated from “throwaway OC” into “character who deserves a good game.” Maybe spending hours animating a character will actually make you want to make things worthwhile. Who knew? I want this game to be fun. I want it to be, like, good. Maybe only 15 minutes of good. But still, good.

May’s game is meant to be a game about exploration and village life. But no combat. I don't want to add that level of complexity to my first game. Keep things simple. A walking simulator. And, uh, I don’t have too much experience with those kinds of games. :/ How do you make a 2D overhead game (that isn’t a farming simulator) without combat fun? Fun usually means Flow. Keeping a balance between too-difficult and too-boring. In a game with combat, that means carefully increasing the difficulty level and mechanics the user must learn to progress. But in a game without combat…what do you do? Puzzles? Probably puzzles. Do I just cram this game with puzzles, then? That can’t be right. This needs more thought.

Basically, this means it’s time to do research. I just replayed To The Moon, which is the closest game I could think of in this genre. I heard One Shot also fits the bill, and others, and so I’ll likely be playing that soon (been on my radar for months now).

So, that's it so far. The game's basic outline is still intact. But I want to think more about what the player will do to win, and how to make it fun. That will have a huge impact on the rest of the game - especially the map and sidequests. So, it's a high priority.

Major missing piece #2 is: music and sfx. No progress to report on those fronts.

Thank you for reading. Without people to play games, there would be little reason to make them. I hope you have a great rest of your day!

[micalpixel]

Pixel Art Walking Animations, Part 2

This is a followup to Part 1. This time we're looking at side-facing sprites, both walking and running versions.

Here are the right-facing walk animations from the same characters as before. Every character uses the same number of frames....Wait a minute....Something's off...One of these characters has been demoted to a lower row...

Toby Fox...did you give Frisk only TWO frames of animation for left- and right-walking? In comparison to their FOUR frames for up-and-down?? Toby.... :(

With only a few exceptions, the horizontal position of the head does not change. The heads may turn and bob, and bodies moreso, but generally speaking, the heads stay fairly fixed.

Now for the running versions...

For each character, the walk animation is on top, and the run animation below it.

It turns out that a lot of games don't even have running animations, so I took those characters out. The ones that remain are pretty much all from RPGs with large worlds to explore, where running is a huge time-saver. The 4-frame ones are almost all from games with turn-based battles or no battles at all. The 6-frame ones are mostly all from action RPGs, where movement plays a bigger role (and thus have more frames for smoother movement).

Three of these characters have a different number of frames compared to their walking animations. Lucas gets four unique frames instead of reusing one. Lea gets a smooth 6-frame Naruto-run animation, and the boy from Secret of Evermore gets FEWER frames, resulting in a more dramatic shift for each frame.

Running animations seem prone to take up more width. This means more space to personalize these animations, and so we see much greater differences between characters, especially for the ones with the widest sprites. Ones which only add a slight slant to the walk animations feel more stiff. However, run animations usually devote less time to each frame, so the stiffness is harder to notice during gameplay.

Studying these animations has taught a lot about animating things for use in video games. It's not enough to just "make a walking/running animation." You need to know how large your game's environmental art and character sprites will be. You need to know what type of game you're trying to create. Maybe you don't need a running animation. What's your game's framerate? Maybe you need extremely smooth animations, or maybe choppy ones would be enough. And finally you need to know what style of animations you intend to use throughout the game, and how, if at all, a particular character is going to break from that convention.

[micalpixel]

Pixel Art Walking Animations

I'm about to dive in to pixel art walking animations, for sprites that are larger than I've worked on before. So I did some research to see how they've been done in the past (front-facing, for now, from top-down perspective games only, and only characters taller than 16px).

Here's some interesting findings from the ones I put together and re-animated:

Walking animation loops have ranged from 2 frames, all the way up to 8, and 10. The latter 3 were all by Nintendo. Impressive quality stuff. (Sorry Ness, with only 2 frames, lol. At least Ness has 8-directional movement to make up for it).

Nearly all 4-frame animations consisted of 3 frames, with the middle one being repeated twice. (left-foot - stand - right-foot, stand, ...). However, one (the top-right), had 4 unique frames of animation. It's from Alcahest.

Head-bobbing is a near-universal way to convey walking. And it was expressed in many ways. Some didn't bob at all (Terra). Some bobbed sideways (Ness). Some bobbed UP (like a hop) as they put their feet forward, while some bobbed DOWN (more like real life) when they did so. Some bobbed by compressing their torso while keeping the feet level (Lucas), while others physically extended their feet lower than they were during the standing-frame.

Turn-based games, and games where movement is confined to four directions, tend to have fewer frames of animation for movement.

There's also a lot of variation in how leg and arm rotation (or lack thereof) is handled.

So many different styles...

Games Shown:

10: Zelda: Minish Cap

8: Zelda: ALTTP, Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

6: Terranigma, Secret of Mana, Mega Man Battle Network 6, Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, Secret of Evermore

4x3[1]: Final Fantasy 6, Breath of Fire 2, Pokemon Emerald (x2), Mother 3, Harvest Moon, Undertale

4x3[2]: Pokemon Diamond (x2), Ys IV, Lufia: Ruins of Lore, Bahamut Lagoon (x2), CrossCode

4x4: Alcahest

2: Earthbound, Dragon Warrio 3, Crystalis

(Next time I play Minish Cap I'm going to appreciate those animations more.)

[micalpixel]

I'm thinking of splitting this blog in two...

For a long time now, I've used this blog for reposting fan art and comics that I like. And occasionally my own art. But I realize that I mainly work on game development. And that a lot of people who want to follow this blog for that reason probably aren't interested in the amount of reblogged art I post. And vice-versa for the game development stuff. That's two separate audiences, so I think it's appropriate to create a separate blog...

[micalpixel]

May Flowers Game - August 2024 Progress Report

Hello everyone! It's time for the August devlog entry for my indie game work-in-progress! Here are the topics for this month:

World and Story

Gameplay

Features

Graphics and Sound

Research

What's Next

World and Story

The #1 goal for August was to finish an outline of the entire main quest. Here it is. Shrunk down heavily. Because, ya know, this would spoil the entire story. :3

Summary of the chart:

May must collect 6 use-able items. These will be obtained in a linear order. The goal with these is to slowly enhance May's abilities in a way that builds on the abilities she learned before. The order really is important.

May must collect 7 sets of 3 quest items (21 items total) to win the game. These can be obtained in ANY order. The goal with these is to encourage exploration. While exploring an area, you might not find one of these items. But you may find a component of one of them. Which means you can start working towards it, by accident. Exploration is meaningful and will be rewarded.

The columns indicate items, characters, locations, types of events, and descriptions of said events.

I'm really excited with some of the cutscenes and characters. And others, not so much. This graph will be iterated on and improved over time.

Gameplay

Two major updates for gameplay...

#1: So, in the very first week of development, I made a few decisions in order to limit the scope of the game (so it wouldn't get too big and hard to complete):

No HUD or health bars (complexity)

No combat (combat requires balancing, more items, etc)

No equippable items.

But then, I made a critical error. I assumed that a game with no health bar and no combat meant a game with no enemies. And...that is not correct. I completely forgot that games where the goal is to avoid touching enemies, rather than fight them, exist. Watching a playthrough of an old game called "Ancient Empires" made me realize this. And there are other famous such games where that is the entire point, like "The World's Hardest Game."

So, May's game won't just be about puzzles and meeting NPCs anymore. I'm going to start adding enemies for May to avoid. (Sorry, May) :3

And this is actually really important. Avoiding enemies can be a challenge. Avoiding enemies as efficiently as possible can be an even harder self-imposed challenge for players. A game with no enemies, and with kinda simple puzzles, is kinda not challenging. Without challenge, a game becomes boring. Even really simple enemies moving around, blocking the way, will make the player stop and think about the best way to proceed.

In the end, I'm confident that adding enemies will make the game more fun.

#2: Another new major mechanic will be the ability to pick up and drop items. These items can have various properties. Some might be part of a delivery quest. Some might interact with puzzles in unique ways.  During this time, she won't be able to use her other abilities. She WILL be able to carry them from one room to another, though.

Since items are not equippable, and there is no HUD, how will the player know which item May currently has?

May will hold it over her head as she walks around. :3

In short, you're going to see May holding things above her head. A lot. :D

(Placeholder yellow square for now. :3)

Features

A couple of new features were added to the game engine this month:

Gamepad and Touch Input Support: The game now supports controllers, and touch input too. Touch inputs involve an overlay of buttons, similar to how many mobile emulators work. Eventually, I think these will be moved to the left and right sides of the game, rather than blocking the view. But do non-touchscreen players really want to see that? This is something I need to think more about.

(This is a placeholder UI. Not final!! It works, I swear!)

Large Scrolling Maps: I think I'm going to keep puzzle-ish rooms to a single screen size. However, for open areas, I think having large traversible "rooms" will suit the gameplay better, and be a nice change of pace.

Minimap: The game now has a functional minimap screen. You can see your current location, and also  move the cursor to view others. I ultimately want to see if I can have sidequests in-progress be managed here too.

Text Features: The game now supports more dynamic text. During cutscenes, I can change the text speed, add pauses, and wait for player input. This will be important for adding characters' mannerisms. And comedic timing too. ^^

Better Scene Management: Code for cutscenes was tidied up. Multiple different NPC objects now rely on a common script. Also, May can now switch between player-controlled movement, and movement dictated by cutscenes.

Code Cleanup: Lots of improvements to the code were made, to help keep things less buggy and make it easier to add new maps. For example: Each room spawns a "May" so it can be tested independently, but moving to a different room will no longer spawn a second "May". It used to. And it was deleted immediately. But this caused weird flickering issues due to multiple cameras being present, even if it was just for one frame.

Graphics and Sound

No updates on sound...

For graphics, though. I made a mockup of the inventory screen.

I also studied lots of pixel art games with similar character sizes. And I realized, even for such small sprites, there's a ton of variety. I don't expect May's sprite to change much. But for the environments, there are so many different ways to do things. Need to think about that more.

And also created the first full-size art of May.

One person even made fanart of her!! 🥲 Thanks, Loren!!

Research

Lots and lots of research was done this month. Especially for that main quest arc above.

I realized that it would be much easier to think of ideas if I had a list of things in front of me. So, instead of wondering, "What item would make sense for this character?", I can just browse a list of hundreds of item ideas and see if anything jumps out. Items, characters, professions, locations, adjectives... Lists for all of these are now ready to use.

I also did some research on specific real-world topics. On beekeeping, since May is a beekeeper. And also a few other historical things.

And also, watched/played a few video games:

Played: The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls (I studied how it handles quest and item progression)

Watched: Mother 1 (I forgot so much of this game, just wanted to see it again.)

Watched: Quest: Brian's Journey (made me realize I should think more about environmental graphical styles)

Watched: Ancient Empires (reminded me that you can have a game with enemies but without combat)

Playing: OneShot (yes, finally!)

What's Next

So...What's next on the agenda?

Take another swing at the main quest arc chart above. I took notes on the first one, where I felt it was lacking. And I'd like to addres them in the next version.  For example, focus more about designing tasks that require use of May's abilties, rather than just delivering things. I may even build another chart, completely from scratch, with all new characters and locations. Just to see what kinds of ideas shake out of that.

Think more about major themes. What is this game about? What is this game's world about? Who is May? What is village life like?

Make a test dungeon. An interconnected series of rooms with puzzles and enemies, to see what the gameplay feels like.

Create a "Vertical Slice" of the game. This means a demo of part of the game where everything is 100% polished and is something a lot of game developers create. It's a way of saying, "The game will be exactly this, just more of it."

Maaaybe work on graphics for characters and scenery? At the very least, experimenting on different styles.

A major term on my mind is "Iterative Design." Making something, and then improving it. Again and again. There are so many parts to a game, all influencing each other. Until now, they're all been worked on independently.

But that main quest chart shows how things are becoming connected. Characters, locations, items, abilities, themes, puzzles, the world itself. When one is changed or improved, it means the others are impacted and thus need to be improved too, to get them on the same level.

So, I think a lot of the work going forward will be to smooth over everything with a finer and finer comb, and do the same to everything else.

Thank you for reading. See you next month!

[micalpixel]

May Flowers Game - July 2024 Progress Report

Another month has passed, so it's time for another update!

(Prior Updates: June, May, Initial) Oh my gosh, three months since I set out to finish a game??!! How how how howwwwwwwwww??? Where is my life going??!!!

I mean.... 😅 I'm proud of these three months. Each finished thing I've put out there was built upon all the previous ones, and has been one step closer to the final goal. Three months ago, the protagonist didn't even exist, in any form, even mentally. Now it's starting to resemble a real game. (I do want to post more screenshots in the future though! Once I get to work on graphics again. Maybe even videos?)

Games Beaten This Month

(which I've taken notes on)

Kena: Bridge of Spirits - This game just looks so amazing. There's a major focus on boss battles which I think is reminiscent of Dark Souls, which I haven't played. But I can see the appeal.

The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls - An old Game Boy game to help get me re-acquainted with the system. It's a very lighthearted and humorous game, made by Nintendo. In fact, it was made by the game team who would later make The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and is where said game's Prince Richard originated from. You may also have seen the protagonist of this game in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. It is a grayscale game. But if you can look past that, it's a very fun little game, which in many ways is actually a parody of Zelda games.

OneShot - Haven't played it yet!! Haven't forgotten!! I WILL play this.

Prototype #1

Back around June 20, after doing all that games research, I put together a document called "Prototype #1." It was a wishlist of features I wanted to complete for the game. Things I KNEW it would need. Things like (but in more detail than here):

Player's abilities/main items and their effects (top priority)

Main kinds of terrain and their effects.

Various menus (including a debug menu)

Inventory system, money, game flags

Maps, moving from one screen to the other

Ability to have NPCs, dialogue boxes, and cutscene events.

That last bullet was shown off in this piece from earlier this month. The game's cutscene engine is quite powerful now:

And I'm happy to report, that all of the wishlist items for Prototype #1 were implemented as of July 20! ...except for two:

Make one simple song.

Make least 5 Sound effects, especially for text, jumping.

Music and Sound

I really wanted to finish this checklist in July. That gave me 11 days to figure out what the heck to do for music and sound. 😭 Since the game's art style is based on the Game Boy Color, I planned to use a VST plugin in FL Studio capable of mimicking its sound, for everything. And I spent 4 days learning and studying for it. But...it has limitations. Which the Game Boy itself didn't have. That didn't sit well with me. There is a Game Boy music sequencer called LSDj (Little Sound Dj). Unlike a VST plugin, it is actual Game Boy software. It runs on a Game Boy (or emulator). And...it's powerful. Very powerful. Check it out on YouTube and see what people are making with it. And it IS accurate Game Boy sound because it is ACTUALLY running on a Game Boy. Here's what a music score with 8 notes looks like in it:

So...I tried it. And...it was very easy to learn. 🥰I studied the waveforms it generated, and those from actual Game Boy games. I examined unofficial source code of several games to learn how they created music. And within 2 days, I'd managed to re-create a well known song from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Mabe Village, using LSDj. I chose this song because it uses the system's two pulse sound channels. Which is about as simple as a Game Boy song can get. LSDj delivered! My ear cannot tell the difference between the original and the recreation. Here's what the original sounds like:

So...technically the Prototype 1 doc didn't say I had to make a *new* song. Just a "simple song." So, re-creating an existing one technically counts, right? Even though I cannot use it in my own game for legal reasons?😅 Well, either way, this was a very new, and successful learning experience. I feel like I've earned a check mark. So, mission complete! Oh, I also needed to make five sound effects. Messed around some more in LSDj, and done.

Other sound stuff:

I wrote a small program that can take any sound sample and convert it into a waveform that the Game Boy can play back (using its Wave audio channel).

I learned how to take a recording of myself humming, and turn it into an actual musical score that could be played with an instrument. (Fl Studio -> Edison Plugin -> Paste Audio -> Tools -> Convert to Piano Score). This will make it MUCH easier to write music than by entering each note by hand. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

And with that, Prototype #1 is complete! So, I think I'm going to use LSDj for 100% of the game's audio. ^^

Other Stuff This Month

The main abilities that the player will have are basically complete. They have very tight synergy. However:

Character animations will be 4-directional only, not 8-directional. The diagonal-facing animations will be removed. The reason is, for a puzzle game, it's much harder for a player to line things up if the character can face diagonally. This is why most 2D games don't have diagonal-facing characters. They look nice. But they will cause frustration for the player if they cause the player to miss their targets when aiming.

Running animations will probably be removed. I love how they turned out. But "running" doesn't add enough to justify its existence. The core gameplay just...evolved in a different direction. Running lacks synergy with the rest of the player's abilities. The world won't be so massive that fast movement will be needed.And running would require an extra button to use. The other core abilities use just two buttons. Making the player learn to use a third button that doesn't do much is poor design.

I am trying to limit the scope of this game. So many ideas. Too many. I have to draw the line somewhere or the game will never be finished. A lot of ideas have been shelved for later. So...I have spent some time considering how to use those ideas. Maybe in a sequel?

But really, what's next for August?

So far it's been:

May: Initial designs and game concept

June: Playing and researching other games

July: Finish Prototype #1

And August? Probably fleshing out the game world. In any game, the player's abilities impact EVERYTHING. The world must be designed around what the player can do. Same with all its puzzles. And its main quest, sidequests, story, etc. And also, environmental objects which have synergy with the player's abilities.

This is why the player's abilities were the top priority for Prototype #1. Now that they're finalized (hopefully), all these other elements can be worked on in earnest.

Thank you again for following my progress! See you next month!

[micalpixel]

If anyone was curious what my Activity notifications on tumblr look like, it's basically just this every day for the past 11 months, lol!

I personally find it hilarious. ^^

(And I'm happy people like it! :D)

(That Jubilife village one comes up quite a bit too.)

[micalpixel]

Sprite Study, Part 2: Dragon Warrior 3

Continuing off where we left off, here's some analysis of additional animations from games with 2-bit 16x16 sprites.

Starting off, these are from Dragon Warrior 3. I haven't actually played this game, but I picked it because its design choices are different from the other games we'll look at. Here's a sample of the characters:

All animations are 2-frames. You'll notice that there's very few changes from one animation frame to the next, other than the arms and feet. The rest of the body is practically motionless. This may be due to limited graphical space: If parts of each sprite can be reused between frames (EG, the heads), then that allows for more memory that can be devoted to other parts of the sprites or other characters. Some characters do wield animated objects, like capes, swords, and staves. But they don't all wield them the same way.

Two characters, both with a sword and shield. But one features an up-and-down swinging of the arms, whereas the other features a left-and-right swinging. It provides a bit of personality.

One other thing to note: despite the simple animations, this game rarely relies on horizontally flipping sprites. Lots of the up- and down-facing sprites in Link's Awakening merely flipped the first frame of animation in order to get the second frame. But here, that is rarely done. As a result, we see things like separate hands wielding different items, or head accessories that don't awkwardly flip to the opposite side of the head in each frame.

In short, this game features characters with very subtle animations between frames. But it makes up for this with a level of detail and personality that is possible due to its hesitancy to rely on mere horizontal swapping for animations.