Tech Demo 2

It’s been a week since the 2024 Pirate Software Game Jam started and I’d like to think I’ve made some pretty decent progress considering this is my first ever game and that I’ve never done any game dev related work for at least 10 years.

Anyway, this tech demo showcases the core mechanics that fulfill the themes for the game jam. It’s pretty rough around the edges, but at least the assets look nicer compared to tech demo 1. The coding is 90% done at this point, but the real challenge is in level design. It’s really hard to make puzzles that aren’t insultingly easy. Not to mention I need tutorial levels that teach the player the mechanics and the way different things might interact.

I’ve watched a few YouTube videos on puzzle design (notable GMTK and Mental Checkpoint), but knowing the principles behind good puzzles still doesn’t give my engineer brain a step-by-step process to actually create them.

Anyway feel free to leave feedback in the comments (if you somehow managed to find this game or post before the jam submission). I’m going on a family vacation in a few days so I hope to finish all the code, art and sfx before then so I can use my extended family for brainstorming level designs and playtesting.

Shizuka out!