Solos and Pairs
- Solo project
- Made for the 9th GameBoy Jam
- 11 days in development (2021)
- Top-down turn-based RPG
- Made in GameMaker Studio 2
Overview
Solos and Pairs was my second game made for GBJam, and I wanted to push myself outside of my typical comfort zone, both mechanically and tonally.
Most of my games have had no narrative and focused exclusively on real-time action, so here I decided to make a turn-based RPG with a more wholesome focus on the relationships of your party members.
Mechanically, you fight enemies with a pair of allies at once, with each pair boasting its own abilities and stats representing their relationship. Overall, I think this turned out very well, and while it could use some conceptual tweaks (your characters' relationships can fall asleep - just go with it) it resulted in a compelling scaffold of new abilites as more party members are unlocked.
I'm quite proud of the music, too - I got a number of compliments on the game's soundtrack, and it still sometimes gets stuck in my head!
Mechanically, you fight enemies with a pair of allies at once, with each pair boasting its own abilities and stats representing their relationship. Overall, I think this turned out very well, and while it could use some conceptual tweaks (your characters' relationships can fall asleep - just go with it) it resulted in a compelling scaffold of new abilites as more party members are unlocked.
I'm quite proud of the music, too - I got a number of compliments on the game's soundtrack, and it still sometimes gets stuck in my head!
Lessons Learned
Do things the smart way, not the hard way!
When building Solos and Pairs, I anticipated the game's scope to be a tight squeeze for the allotted development time, so I rushed into implementation before considering the needs of the project. Specifically, Solos and Pairs required a far more robust menu system than what I was used to building, so my typical approach quickly became difficult to manage.
While I lost time grappling with this unweildy menu system, this experience serves as a reminder that investing in appropriate planning time will save you a headache and be more efficient in the long run.
When building Solos and Pairs, I anticipated the game's scope to be a tight squeeze for the allotted development time, so I rushed into implementation before considering the needs of the project. Specifically, Solos and Pairs required a far more robust menu system than what I was used to building, so my typical approach quickly became difficult to manage.
While I lost time grappling with this unweildy menu system, this experience serves as a reminder that investing in appropriate planning time will save you a headache and be more efficient in the long run.