Soloing A Game

First things first: The credit where credit is due. Without assets from the opengameart and ithc.io community, as well as the Godot community who makes great tutorials and guides, this project would not have been possible at all. Thanks to them, soloing went from impossible to slightly less impossible. The assets and music I used in the project were:

Overworld Textures by ArMM1998: https://opengameart.org/content/zelda-like-tilesets-and-sprites

Sword Skeleton by Sanctum Pixel: https://sanctumpixel.itch.io/sword-skeleton-pixel-art-character

Pixel Art Adventurer Sprites by Elthen: https://www.patreon.com/elthen

Dirt by Heartbeast: https://github.com/uheartbeast/youtube-tutorials/blob/master/Action%20RPG/Action...

Background Sky By Heartbeast: https://www.dropbox.com/s/esskpfovx1lkk7v/Dirt%20Autotile%20and%20Sky.zip?dl=0

Dead Tree Pixelart on ClipArtMax: https://www.clipartmax.com/middle/m2i8G6A0m2d3d3m2_a-dead-tree-dead-tree-pixel-a...

Credits Scene: https://github.com/benbishopnz/godot-credits#readme

The Title Theme is: A Dream of First Flight Composed by Jonathan Shaw (www.jshaw.co.uk)

Town Theme by CynicMusic: cynicmusic.com pixelsphere.org

Battle Theme by Wolfgang: https://opengameart.org/content/battle-theme-0

Final Theme by Joth: https://opengameart.org/content/jrpg2-piano

As well as the fantastic Action RPG tutorial made by Heartbeast.  These tools were indispensable to the process, and I'm truly grateful to all these creators. For this project, I focused on the writing, programming, as well as just general game design techniques. My last game jam had me focusing on the creation of music, and while I did enjoy that, it was time for me to work on the programming and writing parts of game development. Game design is a process that can only be improved through practice, and this project was also an experimentation with that. 

For what worked:

Writing for this game came to me, surprisingly, easier than almost any other project I've worked on. Daria, Alex, and Alvarius, the three characters in the game, were all not only easy to write, but also fun in regards to exploring their character dynamics. Internet friends differ considerably from real life friends, but still keep that core feeling of camaraderie. Capturing that was the biggest difficulty the game had, but that difficulty never came to pass in reality. 

For the most part, programming was quite enjoyable and easy to get my head around. There were... headaches, let's say, but this isn't the section to discuss them. Gdscript runs with Python, and since a lot of the actual collision is handled in engine, physics wasn't too much of a hassle. A lot of my potential interactions and gameplay mechanics were ones that were unique, IE clicking on an enemy to freeze them or right clicking to push them in a certain direction. Figuring it out was fun, and really satisfying! 

This is the first time I've messed with game design and level design in a project. It was interesting to find out what worked and what didn't, like whether hitboxes felt fair or how fast the enemies should be versus the player, as well as what makes the overall level feel interesting to look at and explore. Though I do wish that I could have done more in the time, I'm satisfied with all that I could accomplishments.

For what was frustrating:

Godot in general is a great engine, but there are a few technicalities and issues that irk me a lot. Particularly the use of _onBodyEntered trigger zones, and how tedious that is to do. It's not a deal breaker at all, though, more a blemish on an otherwise good engine. As well, exporting with a personalized icon was not intuitive. In general though, solid engine.

I need to learn how to work with spritesheets. There are some quirks and weird aspects to them, but that's more of a me thing. 

In general, though, this jam was a very fun experience, and I hope to be able to participate in a jam like it again soon!