What is this game ?
This game was created for the Vim Game Jam (November 8th 2024 to November 18th 2024). The Jam Focus was “Racing”. The game was not forced to be a racing game, so I wanted to do something inspired by MINIT. The optional theme was "Escape", I used it for the story. The three diversifiers where : "Four Color Palette", "Animal Characters" and "Mouse only". I did use the two first ones, but I left the mouse only rule out. I used Pico8, because I'm obsessed with this engine.
Devlog
I decided to do the jam when it was first announced, but I only started working on it on Thursday (November 14th). I only worked on it a few hours, but I worked a lot more on it on Friday. I was elsewhere on Saturday, so there was no work that day. I worked a little bit on Sunday. I just created the Itch.io page and wrote a good chunk of dialog. I thought so many times that I did not have enough time. But I pushed through ! And I did it. I'm satisfied.
For the creation itself, I knew what type of game I wanted to do. I was envisioning a MINIT kind of game, with mostly story, a little puzzle, and a timer. I created a small map, every assets... But at this point, I had no story, only a time loop. I started writing (time was running) and the story kind of wrote itself. I was so rushed, I just wrote the first things in my mind haha. I struggle to keep my code clean. I mean, my code is always awful, but I try to keep things in order. In the end, I just wrote code, whatever it fit. My game is small, so it's fine, but I used a lot more tokens than probably needed.
Where to find me ?
@berry_sauvage on Instagram, Discord and Youtube. https://linktr.ee/berry_sauvage
The game is also available on Itch.io ! https://berry-sauvage.itch.io/small-loop
Credits
Game and Pixel Art by Berry’ (me).
Part of the code are from some Lexaloffle carts, like the transition by Emu or the dialog system by Rusty Bailey.
Music by Gruber and Krajzeg. (https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=38442)
SFX by Gruber. (https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=34367)
GOT STUCK ?
If you are stuck, you can find the solution of the game here:
https://www.figma.com/board/nezivwh7jIK7g5uvqAWK0v/Small-Loop---Game-Solution?node-id=0-1&t=WvBcUb1i21KJkVSr-1
This is really neat! The visual aesthetic and gameplay reminds me of bitsy games
Interesting game.
Visuals are good, the greyscale+red style just works, and using the red as highlight to interact-able elements is great. Too bad Lexy breaks that rule. Took me a few minutes to find her as she blends with the nearby environment.
Speaking about "Lexy", it's overwhelmingly used as a feminine name to my knowledge, but the character is referred to as he/him, that's a bit confusing.
English conjugation has a lot of mistakes, witch is problematic for a game where interactions are mostly text dialogues. Non exhaustive list of mistakes I remember :
It glow
where did you found
how did you knew (arguably, that one is often made by native speakers)
thank you a lot (grammatically correct but sounds very weird)
did you came
You should ask a native speaker to check your dialogues.
Won the game with the ghost clue, the letterbox clue, and some brute force checks of the 4 remaining possible orders, but wanted to win the proper way after that.
Willy's clue was too cryptic for me: I didn't get that "most important" was implying first, but OK, my bad for not seeing that 1st play-through.
That leaves two possible orders, so this means that Evy's hint is supposed to tell the order of the north rune or the middle one.
The repeated hint is
Evy :"We both have the shortest names!It can be written with three letters..."
I really don't get it, even knowing the order of the runes. Could you please explain that hint ?
Thanks you both for your comments !
Lexy is not really a name that I come across a lot, in fact, I think I only see it used in a book or a movie (I don't remember in what exactly it was), and it was for a male character. I did not know it was so uncommon ^^"
I posted the game a little bit late, so I did not had enough time to ask anyone about the mistakes, but you're right, I will ask someone to correct the game and update it !
The clue Evy gives is not really easy. When you speak with her, she says something about her name being the same as the north rune. And then, she says that her name (and the main character name) is written with 3 letters. So, the north rune is the third one. Written differently would have been better, sorry !
I hope you enjoyed the game even if it is far from perfect ! (And sorry for my English both in the game and the post haha)
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