Learn You A Game Jam: Pixel Edition Conclusion

Hunt for Halford was my submission for Captain Coder's "Learn You a Game Jam: Pixel Edition". In this jam, we were urged to learn something new. I chose to learn RPG Maker (MV to be specific) as it is an engine I absolutely adore in both the horror and puzzle genres. 

Did I learn a lot? Absolutely. Am I proud of the game I made? Not yet. It's current state is admittedly a little pathetic, but seeing as it was my first time using the engine I'm not ashamed of it either. It just needs to be finished and polished up.

I initially had no plans to continue this project, I was hoping it would be complete by the Jam's end, but I simply can not leave it in the state it currently is in. I'd like to take this time to reflect on what has been done so far, and what I will be doing going forward.

Summarizing what I learned during the jam

Time Management

Scope was not a problem here at all, it was time management. I got way too invested in really intricate things that did not matter, like the ranking system for instance. You can't really see it because I didn't fully implement it, but there is a detailed ranking system that I put a lot of time and effort into. You didn't just get a rank for phases, you got a rank and a custom message for the entire surgery, it was based on your score and your time, however I just didn't have the time to implement the features I had created. I should've given a whole day for visuals at least, not one hour. The game looks really bad. I'm not being harsh to myself here, I literally spent about 2 minutes on each of the cutscene graphics, and about 30 seconds on the tileset for the surgery minigame, here's what they would've looked like had I just spent 20 minutes on them instead.

Dr. Halford preparing for work: Created in roughly 2-5 minutes

Dr. Halford preparing for work: Created in roughly 20 minutes

It's still not the greatest ever, and I'm going to be allotting far more time to creating and improving the art, but it's definitely a stark improvement over the old version.

Overall, though time management like this was the simplest thing I learned, I firmly believe it was the most important.

RPG Maker

Of course, the main goal was to learn RPG Maker MV, and that I did superbly. Creating my own custom plugin forced me to learn the exact inner workings of RPG Maker and was a super informative experience.

I also gained a lot of general knowledge on RPG Maker as a whole, seeing as the engine has stayed pretty true to its roots over time, a lot of knowledge extends into both older and newer versions of the engine.

Browser development 

Another reason I didn't spend long on the art, was because this was my first time exporting a game to play on browser. I've heard it's just generally a good idea to export to browser if you can since it's the most accessible option. However in my haste I ONLY exported to browser, this was because I had simply ran out of time because I was having major issues getting the browser version to work.

However after tweaking some code, some files, and some export settings I was finally able to get the game to run cleanly on browser. Which is something I have never done.

Future Plans

Hunt for Halford will be receiving a couple more updates. Expect better graphics, more mechanics, richer story, and a lot of general polish. To be specific, here's some things you can expect in the very next build. 

Shift from MV to MZ

With the arrival of the Steam summer sale, I decided to purchase RPG Maker MZ, and it's honestly not too different from MV, that being said it does have clear improvements and as such I will be rebuilding the project from the ground up in MZ.

More visuals and better visuals

The example visual offered above is just one of many graphics that will be added to replace both my cobbled together assets and create entirely new ones. I'll also be updating the look of the surgery game

Revising and finishing the story for day 1

The story for this game was entirely written on the last day, it was what I did right before making my graphics. As such, the story will be seeing heavy revisions and improvements, along with an extension that lets you play through the entire first day of the game (the full story will likely be around 3-5 days).

Windows, Mac, and Linux support

Right now the game can only be played in the browser. I'm aware this is not the best idea, especially seeing that RPG Maker has to load for each new room in the browser whereas a download version works much better. But I started submitting my entry about 20 or so minutes before the jam ended, so the browser version was all I was able to upload in time.

Expect support for Windows, Mac, and Linux downloads.

News on future updates

Every time a new update releases, I'll of course discuss what has been changed, but I will also discuss what will be changed next. I'll likely set up a timeline for this game, and chances are I'll be completely done with it by the end of July if not sooner.

When is the update and how to stay informed

For now, let's say that you can expect this update to release sometime in December. 

I plan to start posting on my twitter @Serenity_Dev so be sure to check that out to best keep up with future updates.

Also, if you're interested in keeping up with me as I improve in various forms of art, check out my alt twitter account @SerenitwoDev.