I participated in the last Alakajam as well, and while things didn't turn out quite how I wanted I learned a lot and continued to learn in the meantime. Hopefully things go even better this time!

Software/Tools:

Unity
Maya
GraphicsGale
Photoshop

Unfortunately, I'll have a lot of other stuff to do during this AKJ. I'll still try to make a game though. :D

Tools and Stoff:

• Python / Pygame
• MS Paint / Px Editor
• Bosca Ceoil / LMMS / Audactiy (I just got an Akai MPK Mini!)

Here's my last AKJ entry:

Hi, I'm cygni! I found Alakajam a few weeks ago and recently joined now that the 4th one is coming up. This'll be my first jam, so I'm excited to make something for it!

I use Twine for anything I make right now and I want to learn another engine, but I'll be sticking with Twine for this one.

There's a lot of themes so far that I like, so I'm looking forward to see how the voting goes!

Hi guys.

I'm Zyava and this will be my first entirely online game jam, but previously i took part in GGJ 2018 and BeHealthyHackathon in Gdańsk, Poland which was not restricted to games, but we decided to treat it as "let's just do game to have fun".

My journey started with RPG Maker, but currently i make games with Unity. I also like playing with graphics using Blender and Gimp, and i have basic knowledge of editing audio for my needs, though I try to focus on improving my programming skills cause nobody can be perfect jack of all trades :)

Themes which i submitted were coopetarion, crafting, and pressure. I really like when games put people together, make them creative and relax or forces players to improve timing and reaction time.

My aim for this jam is to start small, stay motivated and put attention to code quality which is my weak point :)

I wish you many great ideas on 4th Alakajam!

This is my first jam, and I posted my three themes: 'Classic Books', 'Children Movies', 'The Life of an AI Virus'!
I will be making my game for Windows with Unity 5.6. It will be 2D and will most likely be 8-bit.

I hope my 'Classic Books' theme wins!

If this isn't supposed to be posted here, I blame @toasty. He told me to.

Click for Super Potato Bruh Release Trailer

Heresagif:

Anyway, Super Potato Bruh has been released. It's a platformer with some bullet hell elements!

It's available here (source included!): https://cmlsc.itch.io/super-potato-bruh

Hi there,

During August 2018 I was blessed to work with xXBloodyOrange, Thunraz and Aurvandil on Thyl's Tale. In about two weeks we created a Zelda/Hyper Light Drifter like game. I was really excited when I saw that our game is also featured in the 2nd Alakajam Tournament. In that tournament players fight for the top position in a leaderboard, which takes into account the highscores of 6 games from the Alakajam community.
This post will be a (non-exhaustive) list of tips and tricks to help you with doing a speedrun.

Thyl's Tale Tricks

This is separated into two parts, one that contains spoilers and one that is spoiler free.

NO SPOILERS

The intro is skippable (but doesn't count towards playtime)

If you are tired of watching the intro cutscene for the n-th time, just hit ESC to skip it.

Manage the movement

If you want to get a good time, you need to do precise movement. The normal movement ist done by WASD or Arrow keys and the attack/dash can be used with C/X or J/K. Alternatively: If you enjoy playing with a gamepad, Thyl's Tale also supports gamepads (tested with xBox 360).

Dashing is your friend

You will use the dash to avoid enemies, to pass over cliffs and just to move faster. Therefore get a feeling for the dash and how it works.
Did you notice the timer right above Thyl? That is the dash cooldown. Once the text gets bigger in size and starts to fade, you can dash again. Try to pick the appropriate timing.

Know when to fight … and when to run

There are only some specific places where you really have to fight to proceed. In dev speak we call them "arenas". Those are the levels where you enter a certain region and wall emerge, blocking your movement. The first time this happens in the third level after leaving the city, when entering the ruins and at the boss fight.
In all other cases you can easily run through the levels and not bother with the enemies.
Also see: "Learn the levels" below.

Get some healing

The shrines can heal Thyl if he gets beaten up by the enemies. Just walk near a shrine to trigger that effect. There are some shrine on the way which you can use to refill your health.

Teleport back to the city

When you are low on health you can also teleport back to the city and use the shrine there.

Take a look at the stats

When pressing F you can see your stats. Try to get items which maximize your walking speed and dash range and also minimize the dash cooldown. Good items are the Katana, and the leather armor.

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Know your enemies

There are three different enemy types (plus the boss) and all of them require a different way of fighting:

• Slimes: They perform a random walk until they see you. Then they move towards you and if they are in charging distance, they will charge towards you. This is the only time when touching them will hurt you. After the charge hey are exhausted and need to rest a bit. This is the best time to attack them as they don't move.
• Smasher: This big grumpy ork will do a random walk until he sees Thyl. Then he will walk towards you and start his smash attack. Try to deal as much damage as possible before the attack comes down. Shortly before that you should dash out of the white "danger zone".
• Shooter: This cultist attacks you with a magic bullet over a mid-range distance. As he does not deal that much damage it is advisable to just dash towards him and kill him. Luckily he just takes one hit even with the starting weapon.

Of course all enemies can also be killed with the bow and arrow from a safe distance.

Easing the bossfight

The boss (called Raon) has three stages:

• In the first stage Raon shoots 6 magic bullets in a counter-clockwise order.
• in the second stage Raon fires three rounds of 20 magic bullets at a time
• In the third stage Raon summons some minions and goes into invincible mode until you kill them off. Additionally he will shoot an occasional magib bullet towards the player's position.
• The three stages loop in that order.

If possible, try to avoid the third stage as this will take a lot of time. If you bought a good weapon, Thyl should be able to defeat Raon way before that.

Learn the levels (and the world)

Knowing the progession of levels is really helpful as you can plan ahead. This image (created during development time) shows all the maps. They don't show the final version of the maps but a basic, blocked version. It might help you find your way through this adventure.

Know the puzzles

There are two puzzles levels in the game, just before the bossfight.

• The first puzzle level is easy: just activate the first trigger (best: shoot it with an arrow so you don't have to walk there) then walk up the bridge towards the second lever and activate that one. Then go back towards the first platform (the one in the south west with the wall) which is now reachable through a second bridge. Activate that third lever and continue to the north of the level.
• The second puzzle follows right after that but requires some tinkering. The combination is as follows: Left Trigger, Right Trigger, move towards the (now reachable) platform, activate that trigger, go back to the south and activate the middle trigger. Then move towards the top platform and fight with the boss.

Maybe the trickiest game of the tournament is Whirling Blades, a mouse-only game where all items are used automatically. It can be difficult to understand exactly how things works in the fast-paced action, yet there is a lot of depth to uncover. Let's figure things out together!

Please share in the comments section any info or correction you have, I'll update this post accordingly.

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Items

Item	Dropped	Triggers	Action
Blueberry	Bushes with visible fruits	When the energy bar is depleted	Refills the energy bar
Apple	Trees with visible fruits	When the health bar goes below a certain level	Refills the health bar
Seeds	Fruitless trees & bushes	When walking on a corrupted tile	Reverts the tile to normal grass
Gel	All enemies	When item count reaches a certain value	Upgrades the weapon - First upgrade = 60 gel - Second upgrade = 150 gel - Third upgrade???

Enemies

Enemy	Properties
White insect	Simply runs towards you. May randomly transform into Double spike creatures. If you're cornered, they can deal massive damage due to no attack cooldown.
Double spike	Does not move. Fires artillery strikes that corrupt tiles.
White mask	Moves slowly, shooting purple boomerangs at you.

Tips

• Corrupted tiles: They slow you down, and destroy any living plant on them. Corruption spreads with time to neighbor tiles. In the early game, you can delay the spread of corruption a bit by restoring grass as soon as you can with your seeds. More generally, clear the spike enemies early to prevent them from firing their corrupting attacks.
• Dashing: Useful not only for escaping monsters but also as an attack. Actually seems more powerful than the basic attack.
• Item gathering: It doesn't seem like plants or fruits grow/spread, so gather everything you find as fast as possible.
• Saving blueberries: Technically your energy bar resplenishes automatically, so if you're careful with your clicking, you can save blueberries for later… But to be honest the blueberries rarely empty, so click away!!!

There's no way I'll be able to win this one.

They're all from genres I tend to be bad at aside from MAD SEED and Whirling Blades (mine). It doesn't help that I'm also on a really tight schedule for the Super Potato Bruh development. Looks like @voxel will get an easy first place. :P

The 5th Kajam is over, the long awaited results are in, and sadly I must graciously accept the honour of last place. It may not be your first impression to think of it as an honour, but just as every cloud has a silver lining even last place is itself a prize dependant on how you look at it.
By coming in last I therefore made the most mistakes, and by making the most mistakes I then have the most to learn and gain from taking part in this Kajam. I'm going to attempt to reflect on my own submission and work out what I could have done better. If you have any further constructive feedback I'd love to hear it.

I would like to quickly take this opportunity to thank every single person who played, rated and provided feedback on Street Bots. I appreciate every one of you.

Issue 1 - Inspiration: I chose to make a retro game inspired by Pokémon, a high standard to set the bar by. I did so because I love Pokémon and I've never made an adventure rpg so I wanted to challenge myself. An important step I missed was to look at what gave Pokémon its spark, why people loved the games and what drew them in. I think a big part of Pokémon is the depth of the world; the spreading map that you gradually explore, the chance to encounter new creatues in each place, growing your team and forming an attachment to them over time as they help you overcome various challenges. I dont think a lot of these features translate well to a smaller, shorter game which is of course what I would be making when taking part in a timed event (and starting 3 weeks late!).

Issue 2 - Flare (or lack thereof): Not being an artist this is probably something I am often guilty of. A game doesnt have to be flashy to be good but the lifeless, unanimated battles of Street Bots certainly didnt add to the immersion. The battles lacked both SFX and animation and I think this detracted from the "fall in love factor" which can draw people into games. Another example would be the player movement. I struggled at first to get the movement to feel how I wanted and decided to opt for the "good enough" approach and move on. This was a mistake because movement was such a huge part of the game. The first thing you do is move, the majority of time playing the game is probably spent moving around. I tested the game many many times and got used to the clunky movement, however to someone just downloading and trying the game the awkwardness would detract heavily from the rest of the experience.

Issue 3 - Scope: The game was just too much for me to handle in only just over a week. Add in that I got suddenly sick and didn't do any dev for 2 or 3 days and there's just not enough time. If I'd had the time I would've added a lot more to some of the existing mechanics; multiple bot battles using teams, some sort of effectiveness system in battles,  a mechanic similar to wild Pokémon for training your bots and full keyboard controls! No more cheap UI and mouse elements. Some of these features could've added more variety and life to the game. In it's current state it feels linear and stale.

Despite the bad things I've said about it I'm very proud of Street Bots. I love the game and learned a lot from creating it.
If you've actually read this entire post then thank you for reading my internal monologue brain dump. I hope you too can learn something from it.
Another huge thanks to everyone who played Street Bots, everyone who took part in Kajam 5 and the fantastic organisers of Alakajam. I look forward to the next one!