GAW #1 Adapt to Survive

• CONCEPT (inspired by Daxter's The Matrix Dream mode)

As it was the first week of the challenge and I didn't even remember how to use GMS2, I tried to come up with an idea which seemed doable and quite simple. That's what I meant this game to be. 

Players are in control of buttons on the keyboard (Q W E R to start with) and they have to time their attacks: when the enemy is hovering over the designated attack button, they have to press the correct key in order to kill it. Trick is, if an enemy manages to hit you, the respective key changes to another random one on your keyboard (for example, if an enemy attacks your W button and manages to hit you, that button will change from W to a random letter key: P maybe)

Players also have 5 HP and if they're  hit 5 times, the game restarts.

• WHAT WENT RIGHT

A lot of things, really! I familiarized myself with the GMS2 interface and programming language. I think I kept the project pretty organised and planned my tasks well. I added everything on the priorities list and a scalable wave spawner which makes it easy enough to change the pacing. 

I played the game a few times and it turned out to be quite challenging if your keys changed a lot.  Maybe too challenging heh uhhh... >. >

• WHAT WENT WRONG >. <

There are some things it would have been better if I thought them thoroughly beforehand such as the size of the sprites. Tree sprite is way too big and I had to make sure to scale it down each time. And whilst the tree sprite is huge, the bird sprite and button sprites are pixel art =))). And I didn't have time to make many animations, nor time the existing ones properly.

Also, there was an effects thing I wanted to add: keep the buttons transparent usually and make them 100% visible when an enemy is attacking them. I know why it wasn't working, but I didn't manage to figure out how to fix it.

• WHAT I LEARNED

Most of all, I learned I really missed making games and working on this game during this week made me happier than ever, so yay!

I learned how to build a customize-able enemy wave spawner, a pause menu and how to make a game lulz =)))). I had to cut down on things and prioritize tasks so that I end up with something playable in the time limit. 

I should have tested it more and considered what the central element of my game was: the frenzy of adapting to a strange button mapping. That's something to 'membe for future projects.