α​βWheelie v0.1 - First full level

Posting this first devlog puts an image in my mind of a small fish swimming in the ocean. Every way it looks seems dark and probably full of bigger fish and sharks. If the fish stays still one thing is for sure - it's not going to get any food. So here is my first attempt at getting food.

αβWheelie is a 2D platformer that tries to make using a touch screen for playing games not suck. I starting playing around with the idea of a game that uses only two buttons back in the summer when I realised that none of the games on my phone felt particularly satisfying to control. Tap targets were too difficult or control schemes were too confusing which left me feeling unfulfilled. This sparked my interest into making a mobile game that feels good. However, lack of free time put this idea on the backburner

Fast-forward a few months. I finally have some time on my hands so I decide to take the plunge and  investigate game engines. I settled on Godot because it seems pretty well-suited for 2D games. It also promised easy exporting to mobile which was key for me. After following as many youtube tutorials as I can find I begin work on my first game - αβWheelie. Why the αβ prefix you may be asking? Pretty straightforward, there are two buttons that you can use in this game α and β. I come up with a set of constraints or rules to make sure this project didn't spiral out of control which are as follows:

1. Simple pixel art. Use free things if I can find them.

2. Take as much inspiration from Donkey Kong Country Returns as possible.

3. Two-button control scheme

That's it. If it looks like people eventually find this game fun I can change some of these restrictions but they are keeping me pretty focused right now. On to the game mechanics that I have implemented for this first release:

• Basic movement and jumping
• Slamming
• Touch controls
• One-way platforms
• Destroyable boxes
• Bouncy platforms
• Collectables
• Moving enemies
• Health and game restart
• Dynamic camera zoom

There's probably more but those are the one's that have jumped out to me the most and have each been a mini-challenge to get working. I also spent some time on some pixel art to use as a placeholder

Clearly they wont be winning any awards any time soon but they will do for the purposes of what I'd like to learn at the moment - do people enjoy two button control schemes on mobile?

So please do try out the game and let me know what you think! The game has morphed a bit further from Donkey Kong Country into more of a collect em' up for now but who knows what this game will end up being.

Next steps for me are:

• Polish up collisions and physics for Wheelie and enemies
• Implement level completion
• More animations
• Polish up camera movement

Until next time, cheerio!