I’ve been on that game dev kick again and like I mentioned in my last post, I was playing around in pico8… I know that crazy amazing things are done with it but I can’t help but feel a bit too restricted with the limitations of it (probably because I’m not too savvy with it).

So I started shopping around for a game engine that I could get down with and for about a week I was sure Godot would be the one but after following tutorials I was just wanting to make a game! I didn’t want to learn a new engine so even though I didn’t want to fork over my hard earned cash over to yo-yo games, their desktop license was on sale. Lo and behold I am now a somewhat proud owner of the GameMaker Studio 2 desktop license.

It’s been a while since I’ve played around in GMS (I don’t think I ever really used GMS 2 so I brushed off the rust with a quick and dirty prototype:

It was a top down shooting type exercise and the premise was getting some files from a company through a video game with various anti-virus enemies going after the player’s avatar. It wasn’t much but it was enough to get me reacquainted with gameMaker’s antics at a base level and try out the built in particle system (that I’ve never really touched before).

Pretty quickly during this tiny 1 day game, I started thinking about what I want to make and quickly switched gears to start a game proper with an actual plan so as to not fall into the all too common pitfall of developing something that keeps getting more and more features without an end goal in mind.

The game I’ve had sketches of in my sketchbook for a while now, is a game where the player character, who is somewhat of a vampire slayer type-dealio is tasked with quelling a zombie/skeleton problem at a small village cemetery. The game will be short, sweet and most importantly and hopefully fun.

As far as planning, I pretty much just have all the limitations I want to stick with so as to not overscope this supposedly small game. The major limitations that I’ve decided on are:

• 3 Dungeons
• 1 boss and miniboss for each dungeon
• Only 2 secondary weapons (The boomerang-like chakram, and the “Phase boots”)
• No overworld, only a town-hub with the main player amenities like a shop and respawn point.

This way I can stay on task and actually make a game that challenges me to make puzzles and a nice retro-styled experience instead of randomly focusing on features/items and such.

While I’m still planning out specifics for the dungeons (I’m currently planning and drawing out the first dungeon) I started off with developing the player. I’m not going to touch the art and eye candy just yet. At least not until I get a solid foundation for what the player can do.

So far, what’s working is basic player movement, no diagonal-movement. Basic sword attacking, throwing the chakram, using the phase boots, being able to cycle through the secondary items, getting hurt with a bit of knockback (not pictured) and that’s about it so far.

The next things I’m going to try to tackle is making a template enemy that I can just duplicate to not start from scratch every time I make a new one, and whatever puzzle elements I need for the first dungeon. Something I’m pretty intimidated by is making the room/screen transition into other rooms for the dungeon. I have no idea how I’m going to program that but I know there has to be tutorials for it so I’m not too troubled by it.

But yeah, this is what I’ll be sticking my head in for the next couple of months probably. Wish me luck and I’ll see y’all in the next post!