Elem3nts post mortem

My blood and tears, my pixellated blood and tears….

So yes, I participated in this thing, and I made a thing. Things happened. Very things. I am proud.

The good:

I accomplished my goal of making a game which has significantly heavier emphasis on my background art. I required a simple-to-code game which allows me a significantly larger time budget for art.

Click this image to see it more properly presented, thanks!

I pulled off a similar game jam from over two years ago in the same time, but with multiple tower modes, a functioning upgrade shop, a functioning tutorial, multiple waves, including one boss.

You can see the earlier game jam which I just the graphics for. Being from two years ago, it was clear that while I felt I was a hot-shot at pixel art, I was significantly faster. My drawing fundamentals were much stronger and I could accomplish even more amazing things in significantly less time.

An accomplishment of years gone by.

You can see this game here

The bad:

I’m probably one of the many people who pre-plan their games before the game jam starts. I originally wanted to make a sequel to another past game jam, recycling old code and making a rogue-like hack n’ slash.

My only real dissappointment was the lack of content where I am using a game that would benefit from having alike at least five more waves for players to go through. Programming also took longer than I thought, though this could easily be myself underestimating the scope of something as simple as what I have. However, programming was actually roughly half the time I spent. The other half was on graphics.

Oh yeah, some art assets were either rushed or unfinished. If people don’t notice, I could instead consider that a job well done, when I am able to make half-finished or rushed assets which people cannot tell was rushed.

The annoying adventurer, the boss of my game.

The interesting:

Of course, being a pixel artist, I put heavy emphasis on graphics to highlight my strengths and downplay my weaknesses. I purposefully go for games that are more art-heavy and lighter on programming. Drag n’ drop programming ensues (lol, I write GML instead of drag and dropping actions, but yeah)

See this rabbit? It seems pretty clear that my major influences are Japanese-style RPG’s from the 16-bit era

Original monster design. Do not steal.

Cutting corners with palette swaps is also something I love doing, but of course. I also make superficial changes so it’s not a true palette swap too :)

Demure, angry, insane, happy.

Faces for when they get hit hard are also fun to do.

I also have worked my ass off into learning how to draw trees. I was high on THC when I made a realization of the sheer magnitude and the sheer magnificense of copy and paste as nature does with plants. This tree is basically everything I know about a tree’s anatomy, more or less. If you look closely enough, you will also notice that I copy and pasted the leaves in several areas to save time spent on drawing this tree.

I put my name on it so devs reconsider if they decide to “borrow” my tree for their projects. maniacal laughter

I’ve in general also made massive improvements on my use of color, after getting feedback that I have not been pushing my shading contrast hard enough. I’m proud of where I got after what was basically an overnight improvement when I had to completely rewrite the way I saw color. All in the name of improving on your craft.

That contrast, yo.

All in all,

I worked, improved, and I accomploshed. I basically made the game at a quality I wanted to make. As for the sequel to the past game jam that I wanted to make but had to do a TD as an alternative option, maybe I can work on that in my free time rather than waiting for a game jam.

Work harder, expand my visual library, hone my artistic fundamentals, I am totally looking for the next Ludum Dare.