The release of version 1.0!

Hey folks! The game is released!

This project was a personal challenge. Going into it, I knew nothing about the game engine Godot, but I've wanted to learn how to use it for years now, so I took this jam as an opportunity to finally dip my toes into it.  I'd also never made any sort of platformer before, so it was brand new territory all around. It took a week of working on it for about 3-4 hours every night, with a couple hours here and there during the day. 

I streamed almost the entire development process, and without that, I would not have gotten it over the finish line. Somehow I wrangled a chat with some extremely helpful Godot users, but beyond that the act of streaming the process also helped keep me very on-task and focused, which is something I struggle with frequently. Would highly recommend.

The game in its current state is what will be known as the "riggyjam" version. It's short, woefully so, but in terms of structure and functionality, it does everything I set out to accomplish. I've actually had the idea for this game for a very long time, and in my mind I've iterated on many different gameplay styles. Originally I thought it might be a "shmup" style of game. Then I thought perhaps an endless runner would be more appropriate. In the end I went with a platformer style game. I like to think of it as "bubble bobble with guns", but the big idea here was the plot/structure of things. 

There was a lot more initially planned the game. Even though I scaled it down for the game jam, when the third day of dev ended and I had only just gotten the dialogue system working, I knew I'd need to cut scope drastically. Things I had to cut due to time:

• Multiple weapons that you can swap during gameplay
• Enemy variety
• Different room styles, like a room where you have to kill all enemies before proceeding,etc.
• More levels, and a boss at the end of each level.

And then well beyond the scope of the game jam, I had planned a bunch more:

• Abilities and/or items you can acquire and use, like an air dash or a gravity swap.
• Different kinds of platforming challenges (moving platforms, crumbling platforms, spikes, etc)
• A secret final boss
• After beating the game, unlock new modes or another scenario perhaps.

There is also opportunity to expand on the game's story significantly. Maybe there's some meta elements to the story as well. I think there's a lot you can do with a video game that is sorta self-aware.

After all is said and done, I intend to keep working on this. Perhaps not right away, but I am enamored with this idea and feel it has so much more potential to unlock.

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy the game!