Devlog #5: New Mushroom Enemy + More Level Variants

New Mushroom Enemy

Yep, a new enemy. I had scrapped a few levels recently, and to replace them, I didn’t want to make another similar level. Mushrooms move in a certain direction until they hit a wall, causing them to move the other way and repeat this cycle. Unlike snails, though, these enemies can be defeated by jumping on top of them, giving you an extra jump boost (just like those Goombas from Super Mario Bros).

Now I could’ve just brought back a scrapped level, slapped them in, and called it a day. But that seems too boring. So I instead thought about the new mechanic of being able to defeat the enemy.

And that’s how I came up with using mushrooms over a spike pit to bounce your way to the end of a level. I added variants for each difficulty as well, adding more mushrooms on lower difficulties. Speaking of variants…

Finished Level Variants

I finished all level variants for each difficulty. I mainly did this by adjusting enemy speed and adding/removing spikes based on the difficulty.

Of course, I’m going to have to do this a lot more often. The demo is going to be longer than 8 levels, and the demo is nothing compared to what I plan to release in the full game.

Minor Details and Changes

• Added new level template
• Shrunk player hitbox
• Played and looped a track as a BGM player
• Imported image assets for upcoming enemies
• Reimported music assets
• New “Sign Guy” track

Upcoming Additions

This time, I will make the settings menu for sure, along with making another enemy for the next few levels. I plan to take no longer than 4 hours. Until then, see you soon!

Devlog #4: New Difficulties + UI and OST Changes (Part 1)

Things are starting to look polished. I can probably get the game’s demo done by around late July. The deadline isn’t 100% confirmed, though.

Four Brand New Difficulties

I made four new difficulties. These will adjust how much room for error you have and the number of threats in each level.

• Hard: For those who have no experience and just want to have fun. No shame if this applies to you.
• Extra Hard: For rusty jumpers seeking to improve their skills. A casual, balanced experience.
• Ultra Hard: For all intermediate jumpers looking for a challenge. Serves as a fairly difficult journey.
• Extreme: For the most skilled jumpers of the universe. Not for the faint of heart.

As you can see, there are only hard difficulties in this game. This is to remind you that even on the lower difficulties, it can be a hard game. You might not think so at first, but as more mechanics are introduced, you may find yourself getting stuck on certain levels.
As shown in the recording below, for the first few levels, since they don’t contain much except platforms and fruits, I couldn’t do much except add and extend platforms for lower difficulties.

Pause Menu

In order for difficulties to be selected, I made a pause menu. I customized the UI and added multiple animations. I did end up having to redo the animations, however, as I not only realized there was UI overlap between the main pause menu and the difficulty description, but I also received a lot of warnings involving something called AnimationMixer, and I couldn’t find a way to get rid of them until I redid everything.

I also linked the difficulty chosen in the menu to the game and added a small description for each of the 4 difficulties.

New OST

Yep, there’s music being composed for the game now. Rush (from Discord), a friend of mine, is helping out on creating good music for my game. I haven’t coded it so it plays in-game yet, but I’ve imported the assets in.
I will upload the OST to a youtube channel after I make enough songs so you can listen to it whenever you want. (Keep in mind listening to the OST or checking the title may lead to spoiling the game demo.)

Minor Changes

I organized assets into more folders, but this later led me to encountering some issues involving paths to certain nodes not existing, which caused errors to appear. The issue mainly involved sound nodes like the jump sound and the death sound. Eventually, I reuploaded the sounds to each AudioStreamPlayer2D node.
Additionally, the first level’s dialogue font (level 1-1) has now been changed to match with the other levels.

Upcoming Additions

Within the next 5 hours I spend on the game, I’m hoping to add variants for each of the remaining levels for each difficulty, along with making a background music player.
I also need to add a settings menu for the player and fix multiple issues like the floating player bug (seen at the end of the recording below).

Devlog #3: Movement and Level Additions

I’m back on Universal Existence now. I’ve spent most of the time so far on tweaking my movement system. It may seem unreasonable for me to do such at first, but believe me, there’s some important additions I needed to make, such as:

• Adding jump buffering and coyote time
• Adjusting speed, jump power, and gravity based on player size (to make bigger levels and as the framework for some size-changing mechanics)
• Boosting jump power for smaller sizes (since the player’s jump felt too heavy when small; you probably will especially understand this if you played other platformer games)

The movement system changes took a lot longer than I expected, as I had to go through all 8 levels every time I made a change to make sure it was possible to progress.

I’ve also added spikes to my game, and I created a few new levels containing them, along with remastering the old levels to make them harder.

Here’s a list of other changes:

• Changed font for better readability
• Set strech mode to viewport so the game will adjust its size based on the current window size

The recording below shows gameplay footage of the harder levels (collecting all melons and almost every apple). Don’t worry, I’m planning on adding a settings menu to allow you to change the difficulty to your liking, which will change the level to another variant.

Devlog #2: Demo Release + Level Screen Additions + New Base Microgame

While finishing the demo, I managed to do the following:

• Create a third working microgame
• Add some small instructions for microgames
• Update the README

3 hours for all of these changes. Not too bad.

GameWare Malfunction is on itch.io now, but there’s only 3 microgames at the moment. Every once in a while, I’ll come back to this project to work on it a bit more, but for now, I have decided on Universal Existence to be my main top priority for Stardance.

Game link: https://justcoding8790.itch.io/gameware-malfunction

Devlog #1: Menus, Microgames, and Modification Madness

For a first devlog, it may seem like I barely got as much done. However, I decided to go a bit beyond the guide by applying some minor changes, such as improving the UI, adding extra animations, etc. As you can see in the video below, I’ve added some small details that I think could help make the game feel nicer.

In the next 4-5 hours, I want to try and do the following:

• Create another microgame
• Create harder versions of each microgame for when the player progresses past a certain point.
• Fix some minor problems (like how the timer sometimes glitches out).
• Create a boss stage when the player reaches microgame #10.

CC0 Assets Used in this Game: https://kenney.nl/assets/new-platformer-pack

Devlog #2: More Levels and Mechanics

Sorry for releasing a devlog so late. My internet went down as I was writing this.

I added 5 more levels, with working exits leading to the next level, along with panels showing text that the antagonist of this game says (might turn the dialogue into voice lines). I also added a melon collectible, which is worth more points, but slightly harder to reach. Everything is going well so far. Down below is a video of me playing through the first few levels (and showing some secrets).

Also, I ended up simply using the name Universal Existence instead of Simulation Overgrowth.

Anyways, you might’ve noticed that I have another ongoing project. Don’t worry. I’ll still work on this game. For now, though, I want to improve my Godot skills to be able to make not only the mechanics I want to include in Universal Existence, but also more complex games in the future.

Devlog #1: Learning about Godot + Double-Jumping and Air-Jumping

I watched a series of tutorials on making a platformer in Godot and followed along, but I eventually decided to also implement my own features too. I ended up making a double-jump mechanic. In the process, I also accidentally made an air-jump mechanic, where I can also jump while falling. I hope to expand my level to include more content in the next 3 hours of work.

Also, fun fact here, when I started this project, I originally named it Universal Existence, but I ended up changing the name to Simulation Overgrowth (and I might even change it again later on). I soon realized, though, that if I renamed the folder, Godot would prevent me from opening the game, as it doesn’t recognize the renamed folder as the actual game folder. Oops… (I’ll find a way to fix it in the next 3 hours as well.)

Resources Used While Developing

Free assets I used (CC0 license): https://pixelfrog-assets.itch.io/pixel-adventure-1
First tutorial in the series I watched: https://youtu.be/oED12Mo2018?si=6y_8LNeydut2Vyyr