bunny quest devlog

hey all! i just finished my first ever game jam, the second girly game jam. i'm very excited and a little nervous!!! i'm writing this the night before i upload it, which is going to get confusing for me i'm sure.

the jam ended at noon and i submitted my entry last night! i got some feedback from my friends right away which i really appreciated. one thing i completely didn't think about was putting labels on the menu buttons so people would know what they do! i fell into the classic trap of thinking things are obvious just because you know them. foolish. for some reason the web build also isn't centered in the viewport which is weird? i thought about messing with the js file to see if i could fix that somehow but i took one look at it and said yeah i'm not touching that.

working on this game was a lot of fun. i didn't make the best use of my time, i don't think. the last couple days before the end i did very little work. i happened to get sick (though admittedly it was pretty mild) and i fell into a bit of a depressive slump. i pulled through on the last day, but as a result i wasn't able to implement saving or volume control, two things i really would've liked to have. i absolutely love to program though and i'm excited to expand on this game and create more!

i had an idea pretty shortly after i heard the jam theme. i've always loved tamagotchis, which were the main inspiration for this game. in hindsight, part of me wishes i'd taken some inspiration from the tamagotchi ui, but i think what i came up with works fine aside from the aforementioned lack of labels. maybe i could make the colors actually match the grass for something cute, but they stand out more not being the same.

the bunny designs were done pretty quickly too, though it took me a while to do the final art. i had sketches in my sketchbook, some quick placeholders drawn in aseprite, and then the final pixel art. they're easily my favorite part of the game; i felt delighted everytime i captured a new bunny or saw one evolve. i'm kinda obsessed with bunnies right now, so i had to make a game about them!

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the programming went pretty smoothly for the most part. there was a lot of flipping around through the docs, but i had minimal knowledge from my previous experimenting with godot tutorials. my code didn't go through many updates throughout production. the biggest change i had to make was moving the care button coding from the bunny class to the main game manager. i probably should've realized sooner that switching bunnies around would break the buttons, but oh well! now i know for next time.

i think the bunny switching mechanic ended up being the hardest part to code. it's ultimately pretty simple, but it took some thinking to figure out how to make it work. there was also the button coding i had to move around that i mentioned before. ultimately though i'm proud of it!

really, that's what matters. my game is simple, and may even barely qualify as a game, but i'm proud of what i made and of myself for making it. i had a ton of fun, especially with the programming parts. i actually finished a project! yay for me! it's a solid foundation i can improve on in the future! i'm so happy.

i can't wait to play the other entries in the girly game jam. over 300 people signed up, so i doubt i can play every game, but i'm hoping to make a blog post discussing my favorites! look forward to that in the next few days. i also hope to bring demo-a-day back now that i'm done with the jam, so that should be coming today or tomorrow. thanks for reading!