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Asterhythm by InvalidBeing

A topic by Invalid Being created 31 days ago Views: 134 Replies: 14
Viewing posts 1 to 7
Submitted

I know I joined kinda late, I got a peak motivation to start making a game and got into the game jam calendar and love the jam idea, fits my goal to learn while creating really well! Lets get into it


My game is  a rhythm based arcade game inspired on asteroid gameplay where you fight and shoot enemy spaceships on beat with synchronized attacks

LINK: https://invalid-being.itch.io/asterhythm

The heart of my TINY game is fighting on beat with the music along with enemies and bosses, the music feeling on input! The heart pound and race when the rhythm gets faster! The adrenaline rush while fighting and the exhilaration to win hitting on close calls knowing damn well that competence was key and that they overcame a good challenge!

I’ll consider it finished when the game get at least one gameplay loop, 8 unique original songs, 5 bosses, a coherent progression and a comprehensible beginning, middle and end to the lore

Something I want to learn or try is Synchronizing the player input, enemies attacks, visuals and gameplay with the music and make OSTs that can trigger the player imagination like Geometry Dash did to me

My first step is work on the gameplay and the first boss attack after setting up the game structure

My next check-in will be Tomorrow, 24 hours from now.

Submitted

Since my last check-in, I completed the game folder structure and added movement and attack to the player, added the main menu and I just finished the sprite for the first enemy and the player

Next, I’m going to... Make and add 1 music so I can reward the player for shooting within the beat based on the bpm of the music


Submitted

Since my last check-in, I’ve... posted a playable version on my submission! Added a new death/retry animation as well as a completion screen, now the full cycle is working from starting a level, fighting, dying/retrying or complete the level and going back to the main menu

Next, I’m going to... add dash mechanic and fix main bugs such as sync problems that only happens on the browser version for some reason :/ I will probably struggle with that if anyone could help I would be grateful, I'm algo going for a new boss with acid music, laser attack and other attacks so I can test movement

HostSubmitted(+1)

Hey, thanks for joining the jam, glad to be making a game alongside you!

I love this idea btw, fighting to the beat is such an underrated game mechanic. Seriously, it feels so good to click to the beat, why do we let Osu! have all the fun.. 

Hey I tried running your build on the link and it wouldn't get past the black screen for me, not sure if that's what you expected. Since you uploaded a screenshot of gameplay I'm wondering if that's just your local build right now? Anyway, the link gave these errors, if it's helpful:


I could probably help you dig into it more if you'd like help.

Anyways, I'm subscribed to this topic - good luck with the music and chat soon!

Submitted (1 edit)

Yoooo thanks for the feedback,  Nat Delnova, I appreciate it a lot!

The submission right now is just a placeholder to me introduce the game, once I make an actual playable version I will take some time to publish for you guys to test it! For now tho I got a video to showcase how its going!! Hope you see the vision 😭😭😭


Since my last check-in, I’ve
... added attack patterns script for bosses and enemies, they now can move, spawn attacks and telegraphy warnings and I can just code the timeline, it was really difficult to do so, firstly because I tried to do with resources which I find out sucks to manage in the inspector UI form Godot and I didn't set up reusable functions to do things automatically and had to hard code every little variable such as direction and starting point of projectiles or moves
Making a base script on the enemy with presets that can be called by the pattern script was way easier to do and replicate, also allowing me to do literally anything since its still on script   
I learned how to follow the beat by using a public script (Singleton on Godot) Conductor which is the source of information about things as which beat we are currently in based on bpm, and other utility functions, as wait beats and convert beats to seconds and vice versa.

Next, I’m going to try out adding lasers attacks and reward the player for shooting on beat instead of just holding fire, hopefully tomorrow night there will be updates!

edit: Now that im looking at my code, I may have to get rid of some magical numbers


My next check-in will be... [DATE]

HostSubmitted(+1)

Nahh magical numbers are the lifeblood of rapid iteration and design! Don't worry about perfect code, worry about having a fun game! No one notices magic numbers, they notice magic experiences. How'd you go with timing the attack on the beat?

Submitted

youre right, this is not the right time for perceptionism I will go all in with the feeling!
for we to sync timing on beat we need a single source of truth script, a Conductor, he is responsible for the beats and related stuff, with a function to play the song he receives the bpm, start playing the song and tracking the song position, converts it into beats based on the bpm song_position / 60 / bpm,  with that in hands we can check which beat we are in and call, wait to reach certain beat in a position on the song and etc, its easy to check if the input was pressed next to a full beat and create patterns based on the current beat after that

HostSubmitted(+1)

that's true, sounds like you're onto it! well remember to take it in small steps and post progress screenshots often 😁

Submitted

Since my last check-in, I STRUGGLED FOR 3 DAYS STRAIGHT, I cant make acid techno, omfg I lost so much time trying to learn but making music goes waaaay deeper than I can handle rn, im fucked

Next, I’m going to... Try switching genres, maybe some simple hardcore or hardbass will work for me hopefully

HostSubmitted

What tools are you using? I saw this post that seemed quite of promising for building music for newtimers the other day. Haven't tried it myself yet, but I'm also musically challenged so this question is relevant for me too. Creating music for your games when you know nothing about music? | Reddit

For me personally, I've been playing around more with SFX than I have music. I think a good set of responsive sounds with no music can deliver a sharper, more engaging experience than having good music but poor sfx does.

Submitted (1 edit)

I'm on FL Studio, not exactly from 0 but I did like, 3 songs including that one I just finished, I will try  that method for the others songs 🙏🙏😭

Submitted

Since my last check-in, I guess I did good with the acid I were doing!! Somehow I tried again today from zero today and got it after some time, now I can make a propper fight and test more boss attacks that fit my beat, here the preview https://drive.google.com/file/d/115ZifMSzUX60UiU6BcG7-Eo74UCWIzEx/view?usp=shari... if I had more time it would be great! but for now thats excellent i believe, tell me what you guys think

Next, I’m going to... Use the music to make a new boss battle with lasers and other enemies at the same time (hopefully I will already fix the sync problem on web too)

Submitted (1 edit)

Since my last check-in, I added dash mechanic, unfortunately I didn't started the new boss yet, tomorrow hopefully...

Next, I’m going to... Analyze what's the next step exactly, really take my time to think about how I can make it, take notes and do it no matter how Im feeling  since I will have a script, my goals for tomorrow: Add menu to choose fights and add the new Boss

HostSubmitted

Hey Invalid Being!

So awesome to see you finished this one off! I played it, thoroughly enjoyed it, and recorded the experience for your reference (it's unlisted):

You've struck gold here, I hope to see more from you for the next TINY jam! Would be really cool to see what other ideas and formats you have for beat-driven gameplay.

HostSubmitted

P.S. Sorry the video got cut-off, my HDD is full 😩 the end of that sentence was "... carrying the experience"!