GAME BOY GOES 2 SPACE // GBJAM 11

Greetings from the great beyond. This is deltaryz speaking, and I hope you've found my project interesting in some way (maybe you did, if you're reading this). Joining this jam was something I did impulsively, without much deliberation. I learned how to use all of the tools along the way, with zero prior experience. That impulsiveness became the running theme of my workflow throughout this project, nearly every creative decision was made quickly by following my gut. Because I was working with limited time, and also the extremely strict limitations of actually running on a Game Boy, I did not have the option to let myself be a perfectionist like I normally would.

That ended up being the best thing about this project. I truly believe, because of this game jam, I am beginning to understand the way I am truly meant to work creatively. This project contains the most original creative work that I've completed in months, and this was only possible because I had to keep moving.

And my god, that was fun.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

• GB Studio: While I definitely had some growing pains while learning how to operate the software, I eventually came to enjoy working with GB Studio. It is a little clunky in many ways, there are certain operations that should be possible but aren't, or require workarounds that are not immediately obvious. But this becomes more forgivable when you realize how many different things GB Studio actually does, and how much of a blessing it is that there is an editor like this so we don't all have to learn assembly. I truly believe a child could learn to work with GB Studio, and that's a commendable achievement on behalf of the GB Studio devs.

• Art: I'm quite proud of the work I did on some of the tiles, particularly the shop. The outdoor areas and character sprites could be better, but this is the first pixel art I've made for a project like this. All things considered, I think I did pretty well for a first go.

• Music: The music was a last-minute addition composed in roughly 3 hours. I am normally used to producing music in a modern DAW, so working with the limited Game Boy sound hardware - and also the rather clunky and limited interface of GB Studio - certainly forced me outside my comfort zone. I guess it was actually pretty comfortable there too, because I'm hecking proud of that battle music. The limitations prevented me from getting carried away with perfectionism or minor details, ensuring I kept a brisk pace.

• Workflow: Making anything with this software, and on the Game Boy in general, is kinda like solving a puzzle where you have very limited space and very limited operations to devise your solutions with. Doing much of anything is a bit slow and tedious, and it's incredibly easy to tie yourself in knots if you aren't careful about how you structure things.
  
  Normally I would expect this to frustrate me, but surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the fact that I had to fight more than I'm used to in order to make my ideas a reality - or to determine which ideas can even be realized in the first place. Many ideas had to be scrapped or simplified to work within the limitations of both computing functionality and development time.

WHAT WENT WRONG

• Enemy Behavior: There are multiple issues with the enemy behavior, the most obvious being their tendency to sometimes wander outside the map and despawn. I originally intended to force the player to kill every enemy in a level, but this bug forced me to implement an alternate way to end the level. Also, it's rather inefficient and heavy on the CPU in general, which is especially problematic in 4 color / DMG mode.

• Story: Because the time constraints kept my focus squarely on "making the game function", the story is something I pretty much had to pull out of my ass. It's absurd and silly and makes no sense. The "joke" is that you never actually go to space because it costs more than what your measly unsigned 8-bit integer wallet can hold, but I'm not sure if this is really that funny. Maybe the barebones nonsense story is a plus to some people, but I kinda wish I could have done a little more with it.

WHAT NOW?

Honestly, I'm deliberating between two possible options. Either I could keep working on this project, finish it up so it's more robust and call it something like "Super Game Boy Goes 2 Space" perhaps?

But I don't know if that is truly the right thing to do, considering how much the pressure and limitations really benefitted me and my workflow. I suppose maybe the best thing I could do is start a different game jam. 

I honestly didn't think I would say this when I started work on this, but I might keep working with GB Studio. It's definitely clunky and hard to work with sometimes, but... I never expected to enjoy that as much as I have. I have faith GB Studio will continue to improve and become nicer to work with as well.