copied the jam version for future use + postmortem

For those who are wondering I put versions of this game as downloadable copies of the game jam.

now on to the postmortem

let's start with before the jam

I started designing the game before the jam began at first, I thought of making the game a platformer or adventure style game. after finishing a jam that had a platformer, I didn't want people needlessly comparing the two games.

next I thought of making a 3d shoot em' up game with GB studio the primary issue is the scanline limit. which would have caused extreme lag and extreme clipping.

what I ended with was a 2d shoot em' up. this still caused a lot of scan line issues.

the next thing I started to think about is changing the main protagonist sprites in the intros of the game levels, so they were not copying from my earlier work

by this time the jam had started

when I created the main protagonist sprite for the many intros that take place in the 6500s apparently, I took from a tile too low so instead it looked like they were a ghost floating and affecting the ground apparently many called that a glitchy mess

at this time, I also started to create a color version I decided to disable that and enabled super Gameboy or SGB so I can do full screen palette swapping. (I did put a frame, but it seems like only the standalone GB rom had this and apparently, I forgot to update it). every now and then I updated the color version then disabled it.

for those who want to here is the Github at the end of the jam if you want to compile it SpaceTimeWarrior/TL-Hyperion-War at 81cca8360e41097abe234712a1e9e01198073467 (github.com)

and here is the current Github: SpaceTimeWarrior/TL-Hyperion-War at 81cca8360e41097abe234712a1e9e01198073467 (github.com)

I initially planned on flying multiple ships or controlling more than one player ship at one point. this was abandoned but elements are still in the code to limit the number of projectiles a player-controlled ship can shoot.  this was abandoned due to time constraints and scan line limitations.

I also had plans to have party members on screen to defend and for the player to defend. I am currently working in chapter 2 in which some of your allies can get their ships disabled in which colliding with or shooting them will cost you points (as well as a bit of dialog to guilt trip the player)

I also had plans of making music themed levels this was dropped due to time constraints.

I also realized level 2 had a bad score distribution. I accidentally swapped the good scores with bad ones. from here on once chapter 2 releases, I will change to a per level as before I did as a whole combined all levels together.

somewhere near the end of the jam before I made level 5 all the boss enemies had the same pattern. as well as the turret enemies had a rapid fire that would shoot 20 bullets per second. this was found out by having my brother test the game. I changed the bosses such that each had their own pattern and change the turret to have a 40% chance to jam (sadly I accidentally put the variable to player HP due to a drop-down option but strangely it works if you take damage while it is calculating it) the level 4 boss initially had rapid fire (this time I made sure it worked it still was possible without changes) I made it to jam after every 4 shots.

another thing I did was build new music tracks for the game. I have gotten complaints on sound recently but these complaints where not clear if it was the music or sound effects.

now for post jam changes.

A recent complaint that I was told that the dialog boxes have bad contrast. I wanted it to look like a grid array, but it just looked terrible I am currently also adding in other dialog boxes from my other games that can be toggled between on the title screen. another thing I was told about was there was misspellings. I have been working on it and have asked some to show some examples to help find them so I can fix them.

like I have been saying earlier I have been working on chapter 2 and 3 but I also have been working on an endless mode. once chapter 2 is nearly finished or at least in a stable point. I will start also working on the other games again. I will not let this keep me down.

TLDR most of the issues were caused by time constraints or due to hardware limitations of the Gameboy.