open thread: what are you working on?
bitsy » Devlog
hey folks, hope you're having a nice friday :)
I want to try something a little different with this post: an open discussion thread!
that's right, the ball is in your court ;) it's your turn to tell me what you are working on: do you have a bitsy game WIP, or one you published recently? are you planning on making something for the jam? do you have some other cool project you'd like to share?
since this is an open thread, feel free to get a little off topic: it doesn't have to be directly bitsy related! (I probably don't need to say this with y'all, but just keep it chill / non-hateful / non-bigoted or you'll be unceremoniously booted.)
I'm excited to see what y'all are up to 💙
- adam
bitsy
a little engine for little games, worlds, and stories
Status | In development |
Category | Tool |
Author | adam le doux |
Genre | Interactive Fiction, Role Playing |
Tags | 2D, Game engine, Level Editor, Lo-fi, Pixel Art, Sprites, Tilemap, world-building |
Languages | English |
More posts
- the november #bitsyjam is "better late than never"10 days ago
- the october #bitsyjam starts at midnight!41 days ago
- vote for the october #bitsyjam theme!45 days ago
- suggest a #bitsyjam theme for october!47 days ago
- petrichor jam has started!71 days ago
- vote for the September #bitsyjam theme!74 days ago
- suggest a #bitsyjam theme for september!80 days ago
- "temporary" jam has started!Aug 31, 2024
- vote for the august #bitsyjam theme!Aug 29, 2024
- suggest a #bitsyjam theme for august!Aug 28, 2024
Comments
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I was working on a pretty simple Bitsy game about a ghost but set it down for a while. It was a little ambitious given my current knowledge of code & game development (which is not much).
For time being, hoping to focus on some smaller projects & jams to strengthen my skills & confidence.
(I'm also a comedian and drag artist and am working on that, too, but that's less the topic at hand).
working on a bitsy game for all of my homies! i've made 3 rooms so far and i think they look pretty good
I'm not making anything right now. I just created this profile to show my appreciation for bitsy and maybe host my games on here along with Newgrounds.
If I'm bold enough, I could implement bitsy into an emulator made with Golang. If not, then I'll wait for bitsybox to either have aarch64 port or the github of bitsybox to have build instruction.
Love your work btw. <3
I'm a game designer from Ukraine and I use Bitsy to create games about the Russian-Ukrainian war from a civilian leftist perspective. The first one have come out in March and was developed partially while I was still in Kharkiv, hiding in the bomb shelter. The second one has come out just recently and was made in much more comfortable circumstances.
I've also written a Bitsy tutorial in Ukrainian, Russian and English languages. It's a bit longer than I would want it to be, but still hopefully can help someone who's interested in making games with Bitsy.
I plan to continue using this amazing engine for making more games about war and other current problems!
just played the first game "no to war in ukraine!" - very powerful work, thank you for sharing <3
is it ok if share your bitsy tutorial on twitter? I bet a lot of people would find it useful :)
I hope you're doing ok - stay safe out there!
Glad you've liked my work! It's really a compliment to the work you've done with Bitsy, making it so simple and accessible, that even a person sitting in a bomb shelter can make games with it :)
Sure, you can share the tutorial on twitter if you want! I would be greateful if you would mention me as it's author, but that's totally up to you.
And thank you for your wishes! Much appreciated <3
Currently not creating anything related to Bitsy, but I have been working on modding projects for a few other games. One of these modding projects is known as Future Spectrum, which is a mod of The End is Nigh, a quite obscure game.
This modding project is a collaboration between multiple people that know how to mod the game including me to provide a new experience to various parts of another in-development mod for the same game, Shattered Spectrum.
Below are some screenshots of areas within Future Spectrum, most being released. The screenshots under this horizontal rule are from released areas, while the other two under the next horizontal rule are not released at the time of this comment.
looks cool! :)
I've finished my first game...ever! Just wanted to say thank you for Bitsy and this great community.
I just played it and really enjoyed it! love the characters and the art - especially the bunny's house at the beginning :)
oh wow!! thank you so much for checking it out :)!!!! made my day
I think I've lost the will needed to make games. Started a new game development course a while ago, and all was going well until the first practical exercise came... even if it should be kinda easy, it became something I couldn't finish.
I'm reading a lot. I'm watching movies and series. I'm playing those games I could not play for years. I'm learning Chinese. So, I guess I'm working into coming back to making games, if you want to look at it thay way?
I still get and note ideas for developing small games, hoping that one day I will be able to actually make them. Anyway, I'm sharing all this so, if anyone is passing through the same creative draught or whatever, and happens to read this... well, know that you are not alone, that it's ok to take time for you and for your talent and spirit to recharge, and that I have faith in that you will be able to make games again, just like I know I will make another game again eventually.
Much love to this community
ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧
I was an English major, mostly because I like writing. But the major was like 80% literature courses which meant I had to read a ton of stuff I wasn't interested in. And over a year later I still can't pick up a novel and read again, despite working in a library. Thank heaven for audiobooks and graphic novels honestly
I feel like taking classes about stuff can really dry up the passion for doing something. We'll get over our blocks soon 😤
<3 <3 <3
I've been making games as a hobby for around three years, but I've always felt a bit dissatisfied with my games because they didn't really carry a strong message or value. It takes a lot of work to make a game that's functional and visually appealing to begin with, so I was never able to focus on narration.
Around a year ago, I found out about Bitsy and was immediately seduced: with no coding required and a handy tile editor, I could finally skip the technical stuff and work on the meaningful part of the game experience!
After working on it for several months, I published a few days ago the first game I feel genuinely proud of: a Bitsy based on Ursula Le Guin's theory of carrier-bag fiction. I feel really inspired by this tool and I will keep on making more narrative games with it in the future! Thanks Adam ^_^
I'm so glad that bitsy has been helpful for you! your game looks great - I'm a big fan of Le Guin, so I'll have to check it out soon <3
I have been working on my horror game mac with the team and getting the idea for chapter 2 "Hollow Wanderers". One thing I know for sure is Carl is in it as the king of the wanderers!
Chapter 1 "Decaying Creations" is Out! Play Mac Chapter 1 "Decaying Creations"
I have read the game preservation article, and my WIP project is related to this. In the flash age, a Chinese creator made a flash version of the old game Tower of the Sorcerer. The flash version was shorter than the original, but popular between Chinese players. I have played it too. Now flash is gone, fortunately the Tower of the Sorcerer community still develops the game series in various version and MOD. Recently I found this fun game has only simple game-logic , simple control, simple texture so that I can make a Bitsy version(still needs some Bitsy-hacks) for it. I made a demo, and the further version is WIP.
thanks for reading my post! <3
your "tower of the sorcerer" project is really interesting - I've put your demo on my to-play list! it's fascinating to think of the game being translated from engine to engine like that
do you think you'll write a dev log about making the bitsy version sometime once you're finished?
ok, I will try to write some dev log
Not working on anything Bitsy-specific, but have been doing a lot of planning lately, and collaborating, plus a little advocating of Bitsy in my indie gamedev circles.
Been looking at the PlayDate Pulp tool, and portability to-and-from Bitsy. Seeing what works there, and what's different between the two tools, and just figuring out current good tools for Bitsy that are also equal parts easy, powerful, and fun to use.
Also been working on kicking around an idea for a yet-another-Bitsy-anthology collection :)
Oh right, for the project that I am working on- it was super-easy to get the games integrated into my custom offline front-end. Bitsy continues to be a delight to work with both directly and indirectly.
sounds like you're keeping busy with some interesting projects! :)
I’d love to hear about where you landed with the portability between Bitsy and Pulp. I’ve been wondering if I could somehow transfer room, and art data so that I could port without having to redraw everything.
Ah unfortunately this has been a slow process that I haven't made much progress on since other projects have come up. Turns out working on porting 2 other games is keeping me occupied heh. But I do intend to do some more work in Pulp probably around December when I have a week freed up. Feel free to add me on Discord or Mastodon. I'd be happy to offer some advice or brainstorm with you on porting pieces over.
Next week I'll be reshooting my Bitsy tutorial video to break it up into smaller pieces. Scripting and graphics are done. It's part of a series of videos I did for our College of Design as an online version of a workshop that I had previously taught IRL (Covid) 4 times for our College. The videos will be available via Design Lab's YouTube channel. It's on the basics of game design using an easy to learn, low threshold tool (Bitsy) that lets students focus on being game designers. I have a companion web site that is a resource for teachers and students. All of this is my doctoral research.
That's so cool! I've seen a need for updated Bitsy tutorials, and I'm really glad you're able to make and share them.
wow, that website looks awesome! I bet a lot of folks would find that helpful. is it ok if I share it?
The game I started making a couple of weeks ago and which is almost finished isn't a Bitsy one, but it's my first game made in "Pocket Platformer", which quite a few people describe as "the Bitsy of platforming". When my game is finished I'll have some suggestions for Pocket Platformer's dev (as PoPlat is still a work in progress), and for that purpose I'm taking several cues from Bitsy, particularly in regards things that serve story-based games well.
I've always tried to push the limits with Bitsy, using other people's Bitsy Hacks and making whatever edits I need to the HTML, and I'm doing the same thing with PoPlat. It's a totally different type of gameplay, though, so I'm sure I'll continue to make Bitsy games without it needing a platformer mode ;)
nice! I heard of pocket platformer for the first time recently - it looks like a cool tool :)
I am currently working on a series of poetry games. I was heavily inspired by a graphic novel called Poems to See by where the illustrator did a bunch of comics based around poetry. I thought it’d be fun to do with games and bitsy was a good tool to do it with
I have done two so far and hope to do at least four more in the series!
that's a cool concept! it's interesting to see what media outside of games inspires folks when they're working on games. I haven't heard of "poems to see by" but I should check it out sometime :)
I am running a game design course with youth aged 12-15 exploring ethics and civics. The games they create are meant to produce some form of moral dissonance in the player.
It's a full curriculum we developed where youth can explore different roles in game design while discussing concerns in their community.
that sounds like a really interesting curriculum! how are your students getting on with bitsy so far?
My students in my Game Development course have made some really awesome games/experiences with the tool you have developed. Thank you so much for making this freely available, and to the community at large for helping further its development.
https://khs-interactive.mrawhite.repl.co/games.html
Great site! Love the student work.
very cool!! it's so neat to see students making stuff with bitsy <3
That is a really cool idea Adam!
So I am juggling multiple project at the same time but my project where I am the happiest about creating is a little marble game.
You accelerate while rolling down the dunes and then fly across vast distances. It’s all on an alien planet that you have to repopulate with foliage. (that is my little tribute to wall-es impact on my life).
And if I don’t feel like coding in the godot engine I continue working on Rusty Blade my little 3D Bitsy game that takes way too long :D. That would be my attempt at changing the things I don’t like about RPGs and doing some meta storytelling.
And if I would want to torture myself I would try again to export my ue4 kit for the unreal engine 5 which somehow always triggers an absurd number of console warnings :( .
Or I would continue making my game set around a highway where you realise you would need to move on from your relationship but that is kinda a dark space which currently don’t want to occupy in my mind so that on halt I guess.
haha it got kinda long. Hope your work on the sound system is striving and everyone else who read this keeps doing their pieces which they are proud of
I'm also guilty of juggling a lot of projects at once haha D:
the marble game sounds novel! is that in 2d or 3d?
hahaha but it’s too easy to fall for another project :D
there are surprisingly few marbles games in existence but maybe mine adds one to the pile. It is 3D and you can see the journey through this hashtag: #NeoSea https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/neosea?src=hashtag_click
cool! I'll check it out :)
I’ve joined the Greenlight Jam (one of my first) and I’ve decided to make my first Bitsy game as my project.
The aim is for it to be a creepy tale, in which the play explore’s their family home and discovers why her sister and mother before her have been stuck there.
Right now, I’m just trying to work out whether what I have in my head is possible without me spending forward working on it.
that sounds like a cool (and spooky) game - best of luck! I'd love to play it when you're done :D