Hello! I am the creator of the game Code: Laser and in this devlog, I want to share my progress on the project each day for the GoedWare Game Jam #10!

Be sure to also see karelessocelot’s devlog video!

Day 1: Brainstorming & Platforming

On Day 1, in the first few hours of the jam, this is the idea I came up with for the theme Consequences:

“2D Platformer where you are able to shoot a comically sized Lazer that shreds the whole place up that can definitely defeat enemies, but potentially ruin your chances at beating the level. Also shooting it creates a fire”

However, I was still open to more ideas, so I just made basic platforming in the game.

Of course, I encountered some bugs on the way:

Day 2: Creating the Laser

On day 2, I got straight to work on the laser, and here is how it looked:

Afterwards, I allowed the player to click to shoot it, enlarged it, animated it, and allowed it to destroy tiles!

Day 3: Recoil & Animations

On day 3, I decided that along with a laser that shreds the level, it should also have a recoil effect where it sends you flying the other direction:

Also did some animation for the player & laser, but sometimes things went wrong of course (Can also see my 1st iteration of enemies):

(oops, set the tween to scale to 100.0, the laser width, instead of 1.0)

Day 4: Tilemap change & more Animations

So, on day 4, I changed up the tiles & implemented indestructable tiles!

Additionally, I implemented more animations for aiming the laser and later required the player to charge the laser in order to shoot it!

Day 5-7: Enemies

So, on day 5 I implemented sprites for the enemies, allowed their destruction, and coded up that enemy AI to follow paths in order to move:

On day 6, I added the small drone that fire projectiles on sight and also added health & immunity frames:

Finally, on day 7, I added 4 additional enemies and their AI:

Torus (Stops & shoots on sight):

Humanoid (Walks & shoots spinning laser):

Small turret (Shoot projectile on sight, unmoving) & big turret (Shoot laser and shoots projectile on sight, unmoving):

Day 8: Levels 1-5

After creating all of the enemy AI, and scene switching logic, all that was left was to use the tiles & enemies we created to give the player something to shoot their laser at!

Level one (Actual progress footage)

Level two

Level three

Level four (Designed by karelessocelot)

Level five (Designed by karelessocelot)

Day 9: Main menu, Tutorial, and Computer/Keycard

Afterwards I ended up creating the main menu so you can start the game, and also the dialogue system where the helper bot talks to you in order to wake you up!

Additionally, I made it so it was very tempting to just destroy the bot right away because of the prompts, and if you have played to the end, you will find out an additional consequence in our game!

Also, if destroying platforms were not enough, I ended up also adding the destruction of level essentials like the keycard to complete the level and the computer to fully heal the player:

Day 10: Literally everything

On day 10, we needed to really get the game finished so I worked on getting the game ready for release by polishing it up.

I put sound effects on most of the interactions such as player movement, hurting, laser, next level, destroying level essentials, and many other effects. Additionally, I added the music karelessocelot made.

I was so hurried when creating the pause menu, death menu, quit to main menu button, so I ended up makin a ton of spaghetti in the codebase and absolutely cut corners, but it does work!

Also, if 5 levels were not enough, karelessocelot also designed 2 extra levels and the endings:

Level six:

Level seven:

So with all of the polish and everything done, I was able to make it in time, but I was not able to implement things like:

• Settings button
• Scene switching animations where the door opens
• More visible/apparent keycards

However, I was able to implement mostly everything that I thought of from the first day of development!

Thank you for reading my devlog for the game Code: Laser!