Byteden Games

Days 19-22. Fell down a performance rabbit hole. In my defense, it was really bad, and I had structured the main loop wrongly. Things should be better now. I will soon be back on track.

Days 17 and 18. Work is starting to increase a bit again. It’s kind of a struggle, balancing game dev and work, but not because of motivation (though maybe it kinda is?). Not having large enough batches of time to spend on the game can be painful. I feel I need those to make progress. Redid the ui, added an eval system a la noita, and did collisions so enemies hurt you and you can pick up exp pickups, player can also dash now.

Days 15 and 16. Did a shift toward noita-like system of card eval for more depth and complexity. Let’s see how this pans out.

Day 14. Added walls. Did a bunch of coding, adding reload at button click, debugging collision, adding juice to player enemy collision, and some gradient rect rendering for loot drops and stuff later. Also thinking I might just do upgrading cards like in balatro instead of stacks, seems less like a hassle, and introduces resource consumption and forces players to lock into a build. But first I’ll have to make more mechanics to plaay with before I have an idea about the gameplay. UX will also need attention, drag drop for everything is too much of a hassle? But then again, stacklands does fine with it.

Day 13. Had work. Other than that, added hot-reloading of lua scripts to speed up iteration.

Day 12. Some bug fixes. Ran into a snag with performance I’ll have to figure out sooner or later.

A major mental snag is when I feel I have little time to code today. And the pressure is on. I have to do something meaningful toward progress. Not a good feeling. When in reality, I just enjoy the process and would love it if I had more time to do it, and in a way that’s all that matters, at least right now?

Day 10. Clean state changes so that I can focus on the overall flow of the game as I flesh it out. Sidetracked a bit adding imgui bindings to my lua code. Encountered some physics bugs in my Chipmunk2D physics integration.

Day 9. Realized I hadn’t laid out how the stats in the game will interact with the rest of the systems and sat down to try and plan it out. Was promptly overwhelmed by the sheer broadness of the possibilities. Also, how would I make it so the triggers don’t fill up the entire screen? Right now I need quite a few of them, I think, working in tandem. Also had the idea of adding artifacts which will provide bonuses to secondary stats and mix up gameplay in unique ways. So for now, I would need to add a leveling system that increases 1 of a core stat each time, lay it out so more triggers can be used at the same time, and see where that takes me. Also, updating the mind map is becoming a bit of a hassle. Wondering if I should just keep a text file with the planned stats and upgrades.

Days 7 & 8. No work done on 7, since I had IRL work. Now cards will pulse when triggered. Next step is to link these actions with the survivor to actually do something, and then let modifiers change how they behave.

It seems quite easy to become demotivated by looking at other people’s progress and how fast they get along, while it can also be very helpful. I have to learn to find a good middle ground.

A recent video from IndieGameClinic describes that game design is not a set of rules to memorize, but a soft skill that isn’t as easy to quantify. My takeaway was that it’s something you do by playing games, and designing games yourself. Makes a lot of sense, though it doesn’t make game making any easier of course.

Days 5 & 6. Added in placeholder visuals for triggers, mods, and actions (these are the backbone of the mechanics in my game). I’ve also fixed some bugs, and added areas for basic card manipulation. The dashed lines do kinda look busy.

My current schedule is,

1. Do some translation work in the early morning
2. Head to the public library at around 9:30 and do some more
3. Develop my game for a bit (2-3 hours) before a late lunch
4. Gym, then do more translation work.
5. After that comes dinner and family time.

I guess it really doesn’t leave much dev time. I’ll have to see how I can optimize, and how much I will actually need. For now I really like coming to the library.

##Day 4. Added card stacking and fixed the graphics flicker. I also fixed some collision errors and layering issues.

Today started with a bit of cleanup, and planning regarding how card zones should work. I wanted to make the cards stackable as well, but I wasn’t able to get around to that today. Right now I just have some interactable cards that can be reordered. There’s a bit of flickering with the render commands, which I need to look into. Here’s a gif:

Day 2. Cleaned up my codebase and started a new branch. Cleaned off the main menu and other game code to start from scratch. Also did some design tweaks and tried to get a clearer picture of the type of layout I need for the cards & building screen.

One notable difference between game jams and working on a project by yourself is that you don’t really question the initial idea (at least I didn’t) or whether you should even be working on this game. It’s a jam, so you just brainstorm for a bit, then get on with it. That’s kind of the point. The usual paralyzing fear and self-doubt don’t really kick in when there’s a collective deadline and hundreds of other participants working with the same theme. You tell yourself the quality of the result doens’t even matter, since this is a jam, and you’ll likely learn something from it.

I told myself I’d adopt a jam mindset going into this solo project. It’s the first that I’m doing without a game jam for context, and frankly it scares me a little. I’m going to have to learn to adapt the “just finish it” mentality into something that can also infuse more quality into my work without compromising my ability to finish this game or adding too much mental clutter. Experiment that it is, it might not have an ideal result, but it’s kind of inconvenient finding a jam that fits the length (2+ weeks) and timing I want. Relying on jams all the time to finish projects probably won’t benefit me and might even cripple me from trying out my own ideas at my own pace.

Finished working on the mind map for now. Starting to feel it’s time to build a little code before I can continue planning meaningfully and not bog myself down. I’ll probably start some coding tomorrow.

Day 1

So I’ll be documenting the creation of a little game from start to finish on here, on a daily post basis, for experimentaion and motivation purposes. This was day 1. I did a lot of ideation and mind-mapping today to lay out the features I had in mind for this game, which fuses elements from games I enjoyed such as Stacklands, Path of Achra, and POE. It’s to be a survivors-like in terms of the combat, but will have configurable loadouts and build crafting based on card stacks like you see in Stacklands or Rocket Rats. Image of current mind map (it’s blurry, so don’t expect to read it):

The process of brainstorming a design with a mindmap is new to me. While I’m not in the “make a GDD before you make a game” camp, I have experienced that I tend to add what I plan for in the end in my projects, and I wanted to make this feel like a real game instead of a scuffed 1-week prototype. Planning for systems and how they interact feels important, so that’s what I did. The planning isn’t 100% done yet.

Game jams are usually the way I’ve found most success completing projects. I don’t think I’m 100% comfortable with exploring ideas at my own pace without external deadlines, at least not yet. One could argue that perhaps the distinction is vague at best, though, in which case I would rather like to have a way to explore my own paths without it being too overwhelming. One thing I can think of is self-imposed blocks of time, like hosting my own jams. The gap between excited ideation and actual playable game hasn’t closed enough times for me yet for it to be second nature. Ideally I would find the most fun and immersion in the process itself, exploring the possibilities in the mechanics, etc.

So income isn’t as steady now with some downturns with my main job. Need to consider how to play this with my goals for game development.

Extracted a bunch of snippets and techniques from the official chipmunk demos. I have no idea how I’ll be using them, but it won’t hurt to be familiar.

Learned about post/pre-solve as I integrate chipmunk physics into my codebase. Most of the steps are already done, thiugh the code is getting pretty bloated, and recompiling takes several minutes even on a mac. It was a great choice to go with lua in addition to this c++ codebase; it really helps with iteration speeds and simplifying things in my head so I can focus more on the gameplay as opposed to boilerplate and code structure.

Used a few hours to speed up gcc compilation times on windows, to no avail. I’ll have to stick with my macbook for the time being.

Ideally I’ll start posting about game content rather than technical progress with code at some point.

I feel I’ll be ready for another game jam soonish, since the changes and improvements I wanted to make c++ side as well as to the lua codebase are mostly done, and I only need to test the features.

So I did another game jam. This time it was a colony sim (or had aspirations to be) about fighting global damage through roguelike relics & three different classes of characters. I like how the result turned out, but as usual, a week is probably too short to strike a good balance for gameplay, especially when you get random relics involved.

What I really like about my process so far is the use of lua for nonexistant build times (except when I modify my c++ codebase). What I don’t like is a mysterious lua binding error that only happens some of the time and nearly wrecked my submission at the end.

You can play the game here: https://chugget.itch.io/weather-or-not

Haven’t updated in a while! I did a couple more game jams & worked on more system code improvements so I can iterate quickly on gameplay loops. I’ll be updating the site with the new entries soon, and hopefully start putting together more prototypes.

Working on another game jam: https://itch.io/jam/jame-gam-christmas-edition

Taking some time to refactor my code and split it into modules that can later be reused for future game jams, etc. Notable changes include a new input system, spine integration, chipmunk2d integration, cleaner folder structure, etc.

It’s been a while since I posted, but I made a new bluesky account @chugget.itch.io. I also did another game jam, and made some progress with juice & ui. I’ll dump some gifs I’ve saved over that time just to clear up the clutter (game jam WIP images, ui screenshots, shaders, spine, etc.)

• Scuffed text implementation, needs correcting
• more work on understanding the code

• More work on text animation!

• modified event system to be more precise, text system needs overhaul

• updated event system code, now it needs testing
• more research regarding input system

• Added new event system, needs editing and testing. Event system method missing some things, needs redoing. Learning about how other games structure text, movement easing, etc.

• Refactored imgui::ninepatchbutton(), needs debugging
• debugged imgui::ninepatchbutton()

• Started imgui ninepatch button, needs work
• tweaked input system, more work on buttons
• Added a couple of buttons for easy console access
• Set dithering scale to be constant (2.99994)

• Tweaked waitForEvent() in lua to deliver payload. Need to run unit tests on event system again
• Made sol2 error message more detailed,
• Got event waiting payloads working
• Segfault with unit test, trying to solve.
• Event unit test works, all tests pass, but the test still says it fails, and sometimes it throws a segfault for no predictable reason (not always)
• Updated input system to pass payloads with relevant data.
• Added input system unit test, needs debugging
• Need more work on input system.hpp and .cpp, and then unit testing all over again

• Explored input system more
• Input system needs testing/fine-tuning
• Input system fully tested. Now to integrate it into the game.
• showTutorialWindowWithOptions() working now

• Cut out some features from tutorial system
• Got main game/menu music playing via lua script
• Dithering shader added
• Trying entt.fwd to reduce compilation times
• Added keymapping layer for later input reuse/controller binding, needs testing

Nothing new to post today.

• explored task management & ninepatch scaling some more
• Wrote drawNinePatchUIIndicator()
• Worked on npatch component for in-game npatch indicator rendering
• Added screen fade-in/fade-out
• Added ninepatch indicators for entities that blink and time out
• Added filter to component viewer
• Used imguilistclipper to reduce processing when showing entities
• Added camera offset fix whenever window size changes so the camera always centers right.
• Added some sounds, but the sound system needs to be tested now
• Got music playing.
• Started work on scripts that will auto-execute on startup.
• Sound effects working properly now.

• Added goap world state atom access function
• Added zoom camera to entity/location functionality
• Added a method to display indicator arrows around an entity, which needs testing
• Pretty happy to see this working as planned:

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function tutorials.sample(deltaTime)
    addGameAnnouncement("[color:KONSOLE_BREEZE_NEON_GREEN]Welcome to the tutorial![/color]") -- TODO: should be showwindow method instead
    addGameAnnouncement("Wait for 3 seconds...")
    
    wait(3) -- Wait for 3 seconds
    
    addGameAnnouncement("Now press the [color:KONSOLE_BREEZE_WARM_BROWN_ORANGE]'A'[/color] key.")
    waitForKeyPress("KEY_A") -- Wait for the 'A' key press
    debug("'A' key pressed!")

    
    -- show a color coded message in a window and wait for a tutorial window closed event
    -- If the window contained multiple buttons, there will be a table payload to indicate which button was pressed
    showTutorialWindow("You have [color:KONSOLE_BREEZE_TEAL_GREEN]completed[/color] the tutorial!")
    
    pauseGame() -- Pause the game before locking the controls
    lockControls() -- Lock the controls except gui
    waitForEvent("tutorial_window_closed") -- Wait for a specific in-game event
    unlockControls() -- Unlock the controls
    unpauseGame() -- Unpause the game

    addGameAnnouncement("Screen fade test.")
    fadeOutScreen(10) -- Fade out the screen in 1 second
    wait(10) 
    fadeInScreen(1) -- Fade in the screen in 1 second
    
    addGameAnnouncement("[color:KONSOLE_BREEZE_NEON_GREEN]Tutorial completed![/color]")
    
end

• Nothing new to share today. Work continues on tutorial system.

• More ninepatch debugging
• Ninepatch working now, needs tweaking to look right.
• Added bg and fg to ninpatch window
• Changed gui color scheme to konsole breeze
• Added simple announcements log ![](images/Screenshot2024-10-05at3.30.27PM.png
• Added a list of defined events file to keep track of events fired by the game which can be detected by lua
• Adjusted mouse input to not go through windows
• Added color coding based on name as well as RGB values
• Made in-game controls lockable via lua
• Changed ninepatch to use imgui drawlist
• Added announcement-adding with lua
• Added lua event publishing argument-less-ly via console
• Tutorial mode tweaking
• Added event_system::subscribeToLuaEvent
• Added resetListenersForLuaEvent()
• Wrote unit tests for these
• Added registerTutorialToEvent(), linked it with tutorial system to allow automatic addition of tutorials
• Modified console to log command input
• Fixed transparency issue in ninepatch window
• Currently the ninepatch rendering will be cut off by other imgui windows in the way, but this may not be a problem right away and will be put aside for later fixing, should it be necessary to fix
• Added game pausing/unpausing methods to lua
• Fixed ninepatch clipping error

• Worked on ninepatch functionality some more (needs testing)
• Placed game assets in a centralized repo
• Added Kenney and universal sound fx packs to repo

-Integrating sound system, needs testing -More work on sound -Added ninepatch configuration json -Added initial worldstate and goal state to creature json, needs more work -Made sample cp437 ui image -Tried getting cp437 export on Ubuntu font (show image), with little success -Added linux konsole breeze colors to the color file (2024-09-30 > show_your_work)

• show lua window on script
• Tutorial windows will fire an event on close which lua scripts can listen for
• Removed spotlight shader, wanted something more simple
• Wrote unit tests for some entity access methods to be used lua-side
• waitForCondition() unit test was failing, now fixed
• Added a simple sound management system, but this needs to be tested