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https://atteo.itch.io/farewellvideo games ---------------- I started with fake NES games and Thumbs memes in Introduction to Video Games, and now 9 jams later I'll celebrate once more those precious things (this will be a one multi level game, not a mini game collection). I started this a couple of days before the official start, putting the basic stuff in place. Even though the idea was to make a really simple and traditional action platformer, I pretty quickly veered off and ended up making this somewhat peculiar power up/collectible system: You can use the items as projectiles or try to collect three of the same for a health(fruits) or invincibility(treasure) boost. Aaand there's a Horse Bag for bouncing on enemies/ double jumping/ floating on water!

https://atteo.itch.io/and-thats-why I'm going to update a lot of things (and fix stuff, like fullscreen bugs now) but this is already a late entry so here is this first version. --------------------------------------------------------------- And That's Why Skeletons Fart That Way - A fake folktale game infused with some random Thumbs memes and lore. I'm now trying to plan step by step what the story/progression exactly is - after that I guess I have to figure out what the gameplay includes. I think it's going to be somewhat like Bogost in the Shell - light puzzles and interactivity that makes the world feel and look interesting to the player. (Speaking of BitS, with previous wiz jam games I had the opportunity to work full time on them, this time I don't, so I can't do something quite as densely packed). Without really thinking, the first thing I made was this - - and here's some more initial sketches.

(+ I added a Horsebag section to the beginning)

Since this game was basically one big reference parade (and writing about actual game design and progress stuff is much harder) I wanted to do a big post like this. Here's a bunch of those references and details showcased. They range from loose inspirations to very, very direct copying. (edit: At first I decided to leave random Idle Thumbs memes out of this list, but the Horsebag has a relevant game connection, weird backstory and mechanics with unexplored potential) Ah, the Nintendo’s Patented Horseback Riding Wii Controller aka Horsebag. Original idea was that it would be a more direct Mega Man's Rush equivalent (it still has the Rush colors and it does help you jump higher) until I decided it made more sense and was more fun if you could goofily ride around with it and bounce on things (like in Zelda 2 and Ducktales!). The behaviour of a loose Horsebag is not really explored in the gameplay/design, but it's something quite fun to play around with: Loose Horsebag acts as a bullet damaging enemies and has basic physics so it is affected by the wind currents and bounces off walls. It also bounces away when colliding with the player or player bullets, so you can do some cool trick shots. Spooky head flying in a sine wave pattern and a dragon head turret shooting fireballs are both very Castlevania. Those flame hands loosely resemble SMB3's Dark Land Hand Traps. They can't grab the player but they can catch a loose Horsebag causing them to withdraw. This is one of my favorite scenes in the game. Mr. Computer Products is the company behind Dot Gobbler. The Wizard appearing on a TV mimics how Shredder appears in TMNT2's second level. The statue silhouette is from the old Idle Thumbs Puffin, Wizard, Far Cry 2 guy image. I recently uploaded my pre Wizard Jam Idle Thumbs themed game Big Dog Run from 2014 to itch. I actually reused (after slight editing) some graphics from it here (police car, big dog (appearing later in the game), statue in the computer shop window). I didn't remember/have time to put the police car siren sounds in, which is pretty silly as the classic sound of sirens was the main reason I wanted those cars in the game in the first place. This is more of a general inspiration: Little Nemo The Dream Master (stage 6, The Cloud Ruins pictured here). Overall note to make here is how the clouds are the only moving part in the backgrounds, there is no parallax scrolling in the levels. Parallax scrolling can be super cool looking but I feel that heavy use of it can also break the familiar nes style look I was going for, so I pretty arbitrarily decided no parallaxing (...anyhow here's a cool showcase of nes games that did have plenty of that sweet scrolling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltuRuGM271Q ) The classic titlescreen building from Mega Man 2. Also the background has strong Cave Story vibes. Elevator screen from Metroid. This is super simple and probably the most direct recreation of a scene. This is all very SMB1 castle, you can even jump out of view/on top of the ceiling for a safe shortcut. The homing drone shooter resembles Spelunky's infamous arrow traps. You can confuse the trap by sending your Horsebag in to the trap's sight line so the drone will go towards the bag, leaving you alone. SMB1 castle ending where Bowser and Toad have been replaced by Boston Dynamics' Petman and a Dr Light lookalikes. I had an idea for a joke where the Petman would give a thumbs up Terminator 2 style when sinking in to the lava... until I realized Petman has no hands at all. Angry Moon, the not so distant relative of Angry Sun from SMB3's desert world. It was important to get the sun's movement pattern (swoop down, switch sides) implemented pretty closely. The moon only starts chasing the player when a vase is broken, so it is possible to run through the level in peace if you leave the pottery alone. This cave door is not a direct reference to anything but I love these kinds of slightly ominous entrances in old games. This is more of loose inspiration that I only noticed in retrospect. Gotta have those classic greek pillars. This whole tomb section is a fun and sneaky Pacman Dot Gobbler reference: A maze where you can destroy otherwise invincible ghosts with a power up. The barrier blocking the way to Dot Gobbler fight is inspired by the barrier in the Great Palace in Zelda 2. Yellow Devil fight from Mega Man 1. In a way, this scene was the whole reason for making this game. A couple of years ago, when I was randomly thinking about wizard jam stuff I got way too excited when I noticed how similiar the Yellow Devil and Dot Gobbler were. So when the final Wizard Jam came around, I had no choice but to actually execute this one very, very specific and obscure joke. Puffin version of the SMB2's strange bird door. The whole Wizard section is heavily Zelda 2 themed. It starts with the 'Return of Ganon/Gaynor laugh' and ends in a drop shadowed hero falling down. The Wizard boss is a general homage to all the big, screen filling final bosses, but Dream Master's influence shows here again (I noticed this only later but even the two different attacks (spectral blades & magic missile of course) are quite similiar to that game's final boss attacks. Here's all the screens that appear in the ending fall, showing a moment from every Wizard Jam game I made. It's just a quick slideshow but seeing that for the first time in context felt really special and wistful. Here's an unused enemy (yet another Zelda 2 reference). Also there's all the collectibles in one place. The mix of fruits and treasures is mainly inspired by Super Frog's selection (shout out to Bubble Bobble and James Pond 2 for having amazing and wild item sets also). And finally a bit about sound effects. My WJ1 game, Introduction to Video Games has no audio, but I actually made and prepared all of the needed sound effects after that jam had ended, I just never got around to implementing them in the game... Now, 5 years later I had a perfect opportunity to use those unused 8-bit sounds here. Thank you for reading, playing and jamming.

I just finished the complete version now a week later https://atteo.itch.io/farewellvideo games Thank you for playing the jam deadline version, please check this out too as it has a lot of new stuff. There's so much stuff and I'm not the most professional/careful coder/designer so there might be a crash or two hiding in there, or maybe, hopefully everything's fine.

First version here https://atteo.itch.io/farewellvideo games I have a lot more already done but this is what I could slap together for the deadline. There is a lot of fun stuff already so check it out. The idea for the whole game was/is of course hilariously over ambitious but I just couldn't resist, it was the final Wizard Jam after all.

Development has been going pretty well, don't know how long the jam deadline version will be but at least the showcase weekend version should have all the areas/enemies/hot memes I've been planning. Here's some random gifs. Because of the loose theme of magic and evil wizardry this looks like some kind of dishonored halloween game now. Updating the player graphics took some time, the black outlines tricked me making the character too thin. Eventually I just had to bravely embrace the thickness. And here's a fun effect I came up for the title screen.

Yep, the new version works fine. The mood and style is a very delicious mix of sincerity with a hint of strangeness. Two small additions that came to mind while playing. W and D for aiming also. View moving, so you could admire the course ahead even after the start.

Windows 10 Home 1903

Skull rodeo! So much stuff I want to add it's a bit overwhelming but the good thing is I can add/remove stuff pretty freely in this project because there is no strictly fixed level/area progression and the player abilites stay always the same.

Hmmm, clicking 'Let's Play Golf' is not doing anything (other than playing the fantastic professional announcer voices) for me.

Thanks everyone! I clearly remember seeing you in my WJ1 devlog, makes me feel strangely nostalgic I now have a clear(ish) plan of the whole thing I'd like to put together. Let's see how well I'm able to execute this stuff then. Here's an overview of all the areas. ...Yes those are pretty on the nose Mega Man and Mario references

Some early art stuff. Beginning of the game's first area (there's probably just two themes, city and then some temple/ruins later). And a collection of the evil wizard's various minions.

This looks and sounds very interesting For gif recording I've used these https://www.screentogif.com/ http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/#download

Very good! First time trying I got stuck in a way that felt like a bug/some weird edge case: But trying again later I had a good experience filled with enjoying the intriguing visuals and slowly but steadily making progress. Some random notes:

Thanks! In retrospect I could have done much more with the different movement abilities. There could have been pretty interesting platforming sections combining bomb jumps, steam hover and auto-movement. About the puffin room: Nick played through this yesterday, besides the accidental resets (I had forgotten the 'R' to restart that I used while testing was even there) it was super fun to watch and see Nick's and the chat's reactions. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/462074713?t=00h31m15s

https://atteo.itch.io/dogcobbler (no story slides or music but otherwise pretty complete thing jam deadline version) -------------------------------- You play as a dog cobbler who has had enough of mangled shoes and is trying to find the fabled Kenkälusikka*, a mysterious instrument that is rumoured to solve all shoe fitting related problems. So there won't be any actual shoehorn action in the gameplay, it's just the magical artifact you are searching. This is 2D platforming once again and the main element will be acquiring and using special shoes with different abilities. I hope to have something to show pretty soon because writing is difficult/boring * Yes, it's shoehorn in Finnish. I find using my own language to make something sound mysterious pretty amusing. Only real example like this that I'm aware of is Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi (Steel Hand)

Thank you for playing, yeah the bell is probably the trickiest thing in there. edit: Oh and as a general note you can drop down from those thin jump through platforms by pressing down, it might make navigating the room a bit easier.

Nice, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

These kinds of simon says tasks really stress me out, so I can't comment much about the challenge but the execution and presentation is very fun. All the interaction sounds are good and help remembering the sequences. I would have liked maybe even more specific sounds, like the pitch would change when moving sliders, slightly different tones for each of the buttons etc.

Thanks!

The new visuals are lookin very very good! Thanks also for taking the time to do these in-depth posts. I just tried it again now with a controller. The analog movement feels nice but having both lean and up/down on the same stick makes it hard to lean without accidentally moving up/down (and vice versa). Maybe separate sticks for those (and then the side switch on a shoulder button so don't have to move your right thumb away from stick)?

It was more of a "Barbie Empties Her Dreamhouse" for me, I got everything but one table and a railing out. The ad-like title screen was a fun idea! Restart/reset option would be good... or maybe it's a valuable life lesson, you have to deal with the mess you've made. Crouching would be nice (if it doesn't mess up with the collisions too much). Ability to throw objects forward, even a small bit, would be fun. Though just being able to drop stuff keeps it less chaotic and maybe makes it more laborious in a fitting way. Slowly lifting heavy objects up and dropping them down was oddly satisfying. Occasional glitchiness just kind of fits the chaotic nature (once I accidentally clipped myself from the second to the third floor (speed run strats)) There was already lots of details and stuff to play with. I will mess around with this again if there will be more objects in the updates (...also I started imagining frustrated character grunts as I was "cleaning" the house). It might not be specially planned aspect but I really like strange atmosphere created by the contrast between cramped indoors and the vast endless desert outside. Speaking of the outside, the invisible walls make sense but I would have liked to wander off into the horizon in the end, leaving the cursed dream house behind me forever.

https://atteo.itch.io/dogcobbler Main things missing are those story/intro images and music that my friend made, but otherwise I'm really happy with it already. Some of my friends tested it and got through, let me know if you find all the shoehorn pieces or where did you get stuck.