"Brain Juice" - My first ever game release.

"Brain Juice" is my first ever original game release. Though admittedly by release it's more a functional prototype than any sort of polished product.

I'd originally hoped to submit it to the Godot Wild Jam #67 and while it was "mechanically functional" 2 hours after the Jam closed, it wasn't easy to understand and had no "playable" levels, so decided not to try to making it a late submission. While all art (models, animations and sounds) are as they were at the jam deadline, I spent an extra week adding playable levels and a tutorial, which I felt was badly needed.

Level design was actually the hardest part of the challenge - particularly with the move limitations, there was lot's of testing and tweaking to make sure the levels were both completable and challenging. Even though there are only 3 (+ tutorial) I spent somewhere around 12 to 15 hours working on them, iterating designs and then fixing bugs or tweaking mechanics to make things work more smoothly.

I learned to use a lot of Godot's features especially for this game during the jam:

• Enemy navigation
• Bone attachment
• Ray casts
• Grid maps
• Custom classes
• Static functions and variables

I also had to refresh my knowledge of Blender (I've not animated a walk cycle in some time - which shows 😅), indeed I was relearning rigging and creating actions the morning the Jam closed!

Overall I'm very happy I took part (even though I couldn't submit it in time) - I learned a lot of concepts which will hopefully stick with me for the next jam (plus lot's of original code I can reference and reuse). Perhaps most valuable of all I got a decent understanding of the time it takes to complete the different aspects that go into a playable game!

Thank you for reading, my next goal is to take part in Wild Jam #68 and actually get something submitted in time!

~ Lexa

(P.S. version 0.0.0.2 of Brain Juice is the works, and will hopefully be available next weekend.)