Done?

PucPucBotBot is my entry in the 20 Second Game Jam 2023.

My plan was to spend a day pondering on the jam theme and then to start building whatever I came up with. But after a couple of days I still really had no solid idea. The other piece of my plan was to use this jam to try out Defold. So even though I had no real idea, I just started fiddling with the common 2D game bits in Defold: moving a blob around, collisions, tilemaps, etc. The main idea only came to me once I had a little blob driving around the screen collecting little objects.

And the main idea is this: You control a character trying to pick up as many things (I randomly called them "pucks") as you can in 20 seconds. Also you can use an element on the map to create a new character to help you. (Which can create another character, which can create another character, etc.) But you have to pause your collecting in order to spawn that new character. So the player needs to strike a balance between grabbing the nearest easy pucks and investing the time to create new characters to help grab more pucks. That's what I thought was interesting. I'm not sure whether or not that comes across though.

As implemented, the twitchy, arcade-y controls are more in the forefront. And there's just a small touch of that RTS game resource management. Which is fine; A small touch is probably all you could hope for in 20 seconds.

I built the title screen out of game elements. So you use the same sensor pads to start levels as you do to spawn new bots. I like to do that in my little games as much as possible. I think it's fun to have the UI be a little "in universe." Also I'm lazy and want to reuse the stuff I just built instead of building new boring UI stuff if I don't have to. Originally I was just going to have the one level, per the norm for the 20 Second Jam games. But I had built a few levels along the way and added those in. (The more you play, the more levels will show up on the title screen.)  And since there are still some empty spots on the title screen, I'll probably add a few more levels over the next week or so.

That's it really. It was some good experimentation and mileage with a new tool. But no grand game design lessons to share.

I think it's actually pretty fun. 

And I do think I understand Defold a lot more. But this post isn't about that.

I'd love to hear some feedback. (But I know better than to expect it. Nice chatting with you, Great Internet Void.)