With Yokai Madness, I reached the goals I had set for myself before entering the jam:

* Program a game from scratch (tutorials allowed, no AI code)

* Submit a game that can be replayed multiple times

* Rank in the top 30 (that one was close)

Click here to check it out. It’s only two taps away, and you can play it in your phone browser!

This was my first game jam where I would do the coding, so that would be my only focus (along with the game design). So as I did the Godot tutorial for the 2d game, I realized that this was a pretty good game which I could easily extend and make use of.

So out of the 100 games submitted, the godot tutorial placed 14th for gameplay and 22nd for fun, with my fine-tuning.

It’s great to know that doing this podcast is actually giving me good ideas like including the leaderboard, and having a “waiting” mechanic, which definitely made the game better.

Also, the best part about game jams is the exercise, and getting feedback and using it to improve the game is half the fun. The initial problem with the game was that it was way too hard. Instead of a one-shot mechanic, there’s now a health bar, which is depleted based on time spent in contact with the demons. Also I made the difficulty adjustable on the fly, allowing players to enter flow, hopefully.

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