dakspieth - Stardance

Ship

@dakspieth on John's Serious Adventure · 29 days ago

This is a 2D platformer I made with my friend while we were on a trip for a school competition (took place after school ended). Fortunately, since not much of the trip involved actually participating in the competition we were able to spend entire days working on this, which is how we were able to somewhat finish it despite not being home (we also started on day 3 of the jam because that was when we took a train to the competition).

Depending on how well you know the objective and map layout, it is very possible to finish the game on the first go around and never spin the wheel, and because of the time constraint we couldn't play test to find out if the game really is as easy as we found it. Anyone reading this should keep that in mind, and I apologize if the game is too hard/easy.

One of my favorite parts of this game is the art. Even though the art is rough and not integrated completely well, different pixel sizes and all that, I still think it's really cool. My friend was the one who made all the art and he did so in blender, exporting those models and animations into a pixel art program where he did some touch-ups then sent them to me in engine. He has a very unique style, with vibrant colors and textures. I can't really explain it past that, so I'll put in a picture which will do all the explaining.
Another thing I'm proud of is the backend for the wheel spinning mechanic. It essentially boils down to a bunch of lists, and that is exactly what is so good about it, because it allows for very easy additions and changes to the game.
One pitfall of us starting the game so late is that things like GUI design and audio design were put on the back burner until we finished the actual game-loop, which happened to be around 4 hours or so before the 2am deadline. Because of this, one of the scoring criteria, audio, was basically non-existent, save for a song my friend whipped up.
Not sure if anyone cares, but I have to admit, our commits to the repo were terrible, (and this isn't an excuse) but to be fair, we were within like 10 feet of each other the entire trip so communication was always easier to do in person.

1 devlog
13h
8.26x multiplier
83 Stardust

Try project → See source code →

Open comments for this post

@dakspieth on John's Serious Adventure · 29 days ago

12h 33m 46s logged

I kinda forgot to post a devlog for this all week and it’s finished so here it is.

I worked on this project with my friend for The Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam over the course of the week (we started 3 days late). The game is about John, who goes to work and needs to hand in a paper to his boss before the deadline. The way we adhered to the “Spin To Win” theme of the jam is by adding a spinner that you spin whenever you run out of time, adding some rule or modifier you have to adhere to, like red light green light or something that makes there be moon gravity.

Open comments for this post

@dakspieth on Multi-Dimensional Platformer · about 2 months ago

12h 54m 35s logged

This is the first devlog for my game, I’m bad with names so it doesn’t have one yet but the gist is in the description “Platformer (obv) where you start in 1d and progress through 2d and 3d up to 4d, with time travel.”

I’m not really sure how much work constitutes a devlog, which is why I have so many hours and quite a bit of progress already.

Overview:
A scientist made a time machine that is supposed to bring them to the 4th dimension (4th dimension being time) and let them time travel, but the machine malfunctioned, and instead of increasing their dimensions, it removed them. The scientist is now stuck in 1 dimension, needing to find and fix the device to complete their goal.

Progress:

I’m about half way done with the design of the first section, 1D, but I have yet to start doing things like art, animations, tutorials, etc. I also haven’t figured out how to make a game in 1D look good at all, which is why the game looks so rough atm.
The video shows what the game looks like right now (video shows like 1/3 of the level), and, like I said, I don’t know how to make it look good which is why it is just a bunch of lines. The game is broken up into screens like Celeste, and on each screen is some puzzle. The player gains a teleport gun which shoots a projectile that teleports you to what it hits, and you use that the get through the different puzzles.

Future:

I know this game is very ambitious, but I also have the whole summer to ship it, which is why I’m going for it.
After the 1D section you get some repair part of the time travel device which brings you to 2D. The gameplay for 2D will be the teleporter and a jump, levels being inspired by Celeste because that has been a lot of the inspo for the game.
After 2D is 3D, gameplay will have a teleporter, jump, and dash. This part will also be third person, and, by coincidence, a lot like Celeste 64 (I found the game after planning this part)
The 4D section will be difficult, and I plan it to have time-travel similar to Titanfall 2, jumping between the present and future/past.

This is most of what I have now and planned. If anyone reading this has suggestions I’m all ears (especially for how to make the art for 1D good). I wonder how long this will look on the devlog page…