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one game a month 2021

in 2021 i challenged myself to create at least one game a month, let's see what happened!


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january

distanced

genre: puzzle
made for once upon a blue monday game jam

distanced is a short puzzle game where you control two people at once in two separate locations, trying to get each person to their exit.

click here to play

what i learned:


challenges i overcame:
things i would do different:

february

roadtrip

genre: arcade
made for NOKIA 3310 JAM 3

Roadtrip is a endless-obstacle-dodging-driving-game inspired by the minigames I used to love from Warioware. Can you get to 2000km?

click here to play

what i learned:


challenges i overcame:
things i would do different:

march

Monstr

genre: roguelike/deckbuilder
made for 7DRL 2021

Be a lover & a fighter in this Tinder-inspired deck-building rogue-like! Can you swipe your way to level 10 and beat the Vampire Queen?

click here to play

what i learned:


challenges i overcame:
things i would do different:

april

A Brief History of Flarbleball

genre: sports/narrative
made for Xander Jam 3

Learn the history of Earth's most bestest sport!

click here to play

what i learned:


challenges i overcame:
things i would do different:

may

7 Second Haircuts

genre: action/simulation
made for What-A-Jam! May 2021

The most successful game so far! Survive a thrilling 7 days cutting and dying customers hair for only 7 seconds a piece. Can you pay rent?

click here to play

what i learned:
  • - Using sinosidual waves for programming cyclical animations is really fun and easy. Almost every animation in this game used a sin curve with the exception of some UI.
  • - Having a clear and defined goal in a game in good.
  • - A simple game with a few mechanics done right can be very fun!
  • - This isn't something I learned, but this game is the first one I've made that has gotten a review! So cool!

challenges i overcame:
  • - Making the haircut detection lenient enough to be fun, but not too lenient as to make the game pointless. In the end I think there are some problems with it, but it went well.
  • - I created a custom tool in Unity to make customer hair creation very easy, this was the first time I've done something like that.

things i would do different:
  • - Add just a couple more customer variations, some people said it was just a bit repetetive before the game gets harder. Though I would argue this lets the player master the basics first.
  • - Perhaps tweak the hair detection system just a little bit more.

june

MINDHACKER

genre: action/twin stick shooter
made for GMTK 2021

Shoot people. Puppet their corpses by attaching them to your cyborg neural network. Use those corpses to kill more people. Destroy humanity?

click here to play

what i learned:
  • - You really need to schedule for a two day jam! I had a lot of stuff going on with work/school/personal life, so in the end I only had ~14 hours to work on this game.
  • - No pressure, just release! - I felt a lot of pressure after the last game I made did so well. It feels good to release something to relieve that pressure, even if it could have been a bit more polished.
  • - I used LineRenderer in Unity to draw those cool cords connecting you and your puppets. I think they look really cool!

challenges i overcame:
  • - As mentioned above, I had very little time to create this. To help overcome this I had to cut quite a bit of planned content from release. Oh well, it helped me know what was important to the game!
  • - This is the first time I've drawn a top down art style like this. I think it looks pretty cool. It is good to experiment with different styles!

things i would do different:
  • - I would make movement a bit tighter. I now realize that in games like this you want to give the player the most control you can to make it feel fair.
  • - Add a couple obstacles to the level/better AI behaviour for the enemies. Polish the UI and add a bit more "crunch" (screenshake/more SFX on kills/particles)
  • - This mechanic could have been show cased better in more of a puzzle/action game ala Hotline Miami meets Hitman.

july

Shapeshifter in Love

genre: puzzle/romance
made for Xander Jam 4

You are a shapeshifter looking for love! So you've decided to make your own perfect match. You go on a dating show and must make yourself look the opposite to your date. The catch? You don't know what your date looks like! You have a limited amount of questions to ask your date to try and determine what they look like and then transform your body to look the opposite.

click here to play

what i learned:
  • - I really prefer making these types of games to more action oriented ones. I learned I really like making nice UI/systems as opposed to programming shooting/enemy AI. At least right now!
  • - Keeping a spreadsheet of data is really useful. The questions in the game are still not 100 percent fair, but using a spreadsheet to keep track was very helpful.
  • - I learned how to make a nice pop up UI!

challenges i overcame:
  • - I had to program a system that was fairly modular for the character customization.
  • - Coming up with all the questions was harder than I thought it would be. In the end I just had to commit myself to doing 4-5 a day.

things i would do different:
  • - I would add a few more questions.
  • - I would make the skip dialogue button more clear.
  • - I would make sure each body part has its perfect opposite. Right now there are "normal" body parts as well. Making it very hard to get a "perfect" score because it is up to chance. This isn't fair to the player.

august

genre: dating sim/action
made for Brackeys Game Jam 2021.2

You are Goshzilla, a giant lizard monster. You are on a date with Moffy, a giant moth monster. Good luck!

P.S. I notice the title similarity with my July game. I guess I'm just on a love kick!

click here to play

what i learned:
  • - This was the first 3D game I've made in 2021 - it was nice brushing up on a new medium!
  • - I made a node based dialogue tree that would be easily flexible for future games.
  • - Making a cute lil' game was really rewarding. Also it is good to make shorter games for game jams!

challenges i overcame:
  • - Creating the 3D village was somewhat tough, being my first real larger scale 3D scene I've made.
  • - To make sure I kept on task I made a quite detailed todo list in google docs. Not the first time I've done it - but it worked especially well in this case!

things i would do different:
  • - Make the building destruction tie into the story more.
  • - Make the game feel more chaotic (the theme was "Let There Be Chaos", and some people felt it was lacking that).
  • - Test out the physics BEFORE modeling the entire town, not AFTER! It took up a bit of time debugging and making things feel right.

september

Office Kiss: Edge of Humanity

genre: action/simulation
made for VimJam 2

A spin on the "don't get caught kissing" flash games of my youth. With a body horror twist! Think cookie clicker gone weird. This game even got a YouTube video about it with 150k+ views!

click here to play

what i learned:
  • - How to project multiple cameras in Unity
  • - How to hook up Unity's animation system with scripts to create an easy workflow for the detecting when Him should see the player
  • - Simple animations can go a long way - I didn't have time to make more complex animations but simple gets it done!

challenges i overcame:
  • - With school starting up again, I really had to manage my time with this one. At one point I thought I wouldn't finish it. But with enough scheduling, anything is possible!
  • - Perfecting the difficulty curve took a bit of testing, but I think it paid off.

things i would do different:
  • - More upgrades? More power ups you could buy?
  • - Have the game work better on different resolutions. The boss can be seen off screen on some resolutions and though it may not be a huge deal, it does ruin immersion for me as the dev.
  • - Make sure to test a bit more thoroughly before building! The first build I had up of this game had the dev mode enabled by default, allowing a player to win the game in ~3 seconds. Thankfully a commenter pointed this out.

october

Extremely Short Wine Tycoon

genre: idle/tycoon/sim
made for Xander Jam 5

Try and make as much money buying wine and letting it age to sell at an exponentially higher price point! Play in the classic 10 minute modes, relax in 20 minute, or challenge yourself in 3 minute mode!


click here to play

what i learned:
  • - How to make a scroll bar in Unity!
  • - A little juice goes a long way - people seem to think this game is better because the buttons are juicy.
  • - I learned a little more about working with vector art. I decided to depart from my usual 2D style to challenge myself, I think it looks good.
  • - Updating games raises visiblity on itch.io. I updated this game to include a fan of the game in it and it let more people play it. Also including a fan was super rewarding. It is really nice when someone appreciates your work :)

challenges i overcame:
  • - This is becoming a running theme, but school took up so much of my time that I highly doubted I would finish this. Thank you to Xanderwood's discord for encouraging me to keep going.
  • - I struggled trying to find a good vector art style for awhile. I had to consult my partner Ngân who is an illustrator/designer. She had lots of helpful tips!

things i would do different:
  • - My solution to handling large numbers is very limited due to the exponential nature of the game. It crashes when you make too much money. I would use a big number library in the future.
  • - Spend less time thinking about the best way to make the UI and just do it.
  • - Take longer in the idea phase, really think about how the systems interact.

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