Bitsy Game: Three Little Pigs
Issues & Fixes
During development I encountered a few issues with the transition of my middle pig to their disappearance through the bitsy engine, in the end i did so by blending both a sprite of a text bubble for their speech (so you had no need to approach the sprite to begin conversing) and also an exit at the base of where one would continue said approach that triggered the transition through dialogue to a duplicate room with minor alterations. This was certainly one I got hung up on for a short while but a bit of fiddling and exploring the engine further gave me the answers I needed while not wasting too long.
Secondly, I fussed up a few exits between the younger brothers' interactions as I placed exits too early for play testers but when one duplicates the scene it takes the exits with it resulting in a few bugs. From here I had to erase many exits in the final stretch of my game and replace them, actually leading to adapting a better idea of you returning to search for the little pigs as their brother demands and certainly added a fresher improvement and extra content to a very short game.
Outcome Overview
most issues arose from my own miscommunications on part of a few transition frames resulting in one losing track of their own avatar for a brief moment as done by accidentally beginning the player on an upper platform whereas the opposing screen had it lower. Given the time and my plot I managed to adapt all planned conflict and endings however also managed to further my ending to a more complete conclusion.
Overall I am very proud of the outcome and will work in future to better adapt to my own shortcomings in my games production.
What I learned / What I'd Change
I learned plenty about the bitsy engine during the process, alongside the importance of both peer assistance, critique and review as looking at others games inspired my original idea of adapting the format to a 2d platformer despite the bitsy platform. This then allowed me to explore further details with my landscapes including scaling, depth and transitions within the environment that didn’t require any drastic palette changes for an evident difference in aesthetic.
I would’ve personally liked to spend less time on my mind map as the secondary stage felt overly complex and overall began to restrict my ideas to process. I do best flurrying my ideas as I go with a lightly lined path that i can twist and turn any way i wish towards my journey and the task of breaking down each rooms items drained far too much energy for me to be wholly productive on the final outcome; and in the end it became rather unimportant for a solo project. However I certainly can see its importance in a group project and those that value further detail in communication.
Past that I had little worries in the production nor issues I had and spent some time lonesome to iron out a majority of the kinks given time constraints, so all I can issue with would be potentially extending those time constraints or adapting them to contain matters that are achievable instead of overcomplicated documentation that I can complete after the game is set in a solo project.
