python-b5

I understand this pain in some cases, but really I feel a good majority of projects I build are just done with "mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && cmake --build .". it could be much worse - some older projects still use, god forbid, autotools...

Another year has passed, and with it comes the second anniversary of #UndertaleWildfire! To celebrate, the third issue of our newsletter is out now 🎉

#undertale

I made this sync to the music, but this is a GIF so you can't hear the music. Just imagine there's music for the full experience...

goodness this is pretty! should keep my eye on this for sure

(as a bit of unsolicited advice btw I feel maybe the text is aligned a pixel or two too low down? probably just the font having weird metrics or smth though)

so, I guess, if it's what people want it's fine and I respect that. but I just don't love it being touted as "objectively better" in this way. if I work tirelessly for multiple days on a game, it's not me "normalizing crunch culture", it's me being genuinely passionate! that's just how I work :)

while 96h does have some potential benefits, I find they don't really pay off. I typically don't iterate much after figuring out an initial design, because I care very much about polish and want to make a "complete product" within the jam. the extra days just stretches out the same amount of work.

as a result, the last two jams left me absolutely exhausted and needing time to recover, in a way previous years didn't. ratings starting immediately after didn't help, because with ~10k games this year it was more difficult to get enough ratings, and the start is the most critical time for that.

perhaps the idea is that you no longer need to work on the game for the full jam period, and eg. take longer breaks, but for me it really doesn't work like that. taking an extended break requires breaking my focus / flow state, and I find that imposes a very real cost on the quality of my work.

I can respect a general consensus, but personally I do wish it was still 48 (or at least 72). for me, I find longer jams are _more_ stressful, not less - work expands to fill the time it's given! I don't end up making any larger of a game, and instead am just under stress for an extra two days.

The Tale of the Lost Stardrops by Berry Games, python-b5 Launch between orbits on a journey to find the Stardrops lost in space!

🎮 Get the game here: berry-games.itch.io/stardrops

📋 Rate the game here: itch.io/jam/gmtk-202...

🎵 Get the soundtrack here: samgorman272.bandcamp.com/album/the-ta...

The Tale of the Lost Stardrops, @samgorman.ca and my #GMTK2025 entry, is out now! It's a precise, physics-based collectathon about launching between orbits in space. Give it a try if it sounds interesting!

#indiedev #gamedev #pixelart #GMTKJam

Doing a space-themed game for #GMTK2025 with @samgorman.ca - the main mechanics are just about finished now! We're trying something more physics-based this time.

#indiedev #gamedev #pixelart #GMTKJam

(I can't draw so I just did a cop-out with a 💜)

thank you for making this game, toby! it's been a big influence on my own work. glad we have this opportunity to celebrate it for the anniversary.

I agree! anything of mine that's not a git repo (since those don't play well with cloud syncing) is generally in my dropbox, since I regularly use multiple machines. that includes music/pictures/etc - I don't use the default windows folders for that stuff. I've never used the desktop folder once!

gamemaker's a bit inconsistent about this. Documents/GameMakerProjects seems to sometimes be used, or %userprofile%/GameMakerProjects - it might differ between IDE versions, and I have a lot of projects so I'm not sure. personally I clone repos to just Documents, I don't use the gamemaker folders.

but insults are a whole different thing, and is never acceptable. I don't think UTY is perfect; there are things I would've changed, or that I think could've used more revision. but being rude to the devs, who spent years on it _for free_... I don't get why people think they're entitled to do that.

I'm 100% a proponent of being able to criticize things. even with my all-time favorite games, I can - and sometimes do - talk about several things I dislike about them, and I think that's a good thing to be able to do as it allows you to be able to think more critically about media.

the audacity of being rude to fangame developers who put in years of effort, when the majority of these people have never even attempted game development themselves... ugh 😕

you did a great job on it! music minigames elsewhere can sometimes feel like an afterthought, but this one actually feels good to play, and that makes all the difference. I also loved how even the original chart in chapter 3 doesn't feel dumbed down - there were some fun rhythms in there!

Key To Success (GMTK Game Jam 2024) by Berry Games, Sam Gorman, python-b5 A rhythm platformer where changing the key of the music changes the level!

🎮 Get the game here: berry-games.itch.io/key

📋 See the changelog here: berry-games.itch.io/key/devlog/9...

@samgorman.ca and I recently updated our #GMTK2024 game, Key to Success - a rhythm platformer where you can change the key of the music - with several improvements to the gameplay and music. It's one of my favorite games of ours, so give it a try!

#indiedev #gamedev #pixelart #GMTKJam

my most recent jam game, for example, has several minigames that each run within a single object. that makes it much easier to control the execution order, which otherwise can sometimes be difficult in gamemaker. doing that would be a lot harder if I couldn't just draw sprites without intervention.

in 3D, the "call draw functions manually" approach doesn't work anyway, so it's useful to have an existing structure to work within. but for a 2D game, it's possible to have near-total control, and I don't want to give that up. gamemaker provides abstractions, but I'm not forced into them.

yeah, definitely agree. I could see people enjoying godot's nodes as a more high-level view of assembling a game, but most of the time I don't subscribe to the idea that game logic should be split into a billion tiny predefined components, when a single readable code file would do just fine.

yeah, this is why I didn't click with it myself. it's an impressive project and I'm happy so many people enjoy working with it, but the node-based system doesn't mesh well with how I like to think about making games. I think it's a good thing that we have multiple options in this space, though!

slopes just automatically working gives me pause, though; if it's using transparent pixels that's usually not a great choice for terrain. ideally you would be able to customize the collision mask of each individual tile. otherwise I personally would not use this, as I need control over my collision.

don't know how I missed this, this is great! I have many older projects from years past with various versions of custom tile_collision functions; it always felt like a bit of a gap in the engine to me. it's a very common thing to need, especially for platformers.

it's got its quirks like all engines, but the lighter-feeling structure of the engine gets out of my way and doesn't feel overbearing. I can work faster in gamemaker than in anything else I've tried. I don't know of a better engine for pixel art games, and I wish it were more popular than it is...

gamemaker is a lot less prescriptive than other engines, which I appreciate. I don't have to "attach a sprite component" or whatever - I can just call draw_sprite. I can run the whole game in a single object if I really want! the abstractions that exist are fairly lightweight.

it only becomes a problem when that critique stops coming from a good place, and is used to attack others who enjoyed those parts of the work. unfortunately that has happened far too much in this fandom, and it does need to stop.