How my #flappyjam game changed over time

For those who don't know Flappy FUUUU is my entry to the #flappyjam, this was the first jam I have participated in so I thought I would go through how my game changed over about two weeks. You can play the game here: http://nylepudding.itch.io/flappyfuuuu

From the get go I wanted to focus on tight controls and comically difficult gameplay. Suitably my game was originally called Flappy IMMA-FUCKING-KILL-MYSELF but I decided to change the name to Flappy FUUUU for obvious "family friendly" reasons. In hindsight I wish I thought more about the name as I regret calling it Flappy FUUUU. I don't dislike the name per-say, but I do think I could've done a better job, and believe it or not, names make a huge difference.

The first instance of the game was made in about 2 hours, with only 30 minutes being dedicated to the actual programming. The extra 1 hour and 30 minutes were spent on changing variables and nothing more. This gave me a great insight into one of the great time-sinks of game development. Some things can be done mathematically but others can only be done with trial and error. Of course experience also helps in this regard, something which I don't have much of.

Version 1

This first version was by far the most difficult, the barriers had a greater width and came towards you at a slower pace leaving a very small margin for error. You might think slower barriers would actually make the game easier, but in this case they didn't. On top of this the distance between the upper and the lower barrier was smaller, a measly 24 pixels which eventually changed to almost double that amount at 44. Another interesting thing I added to the first version was the ability to exploit the game. I thought this would be something not many people would figure out and act as more of a secret than a bug.

Version 2

I achieved what I wanted in terms of having stupidly hard gameplay, however I was pleased enough with the controls I thought I would make it a little easier. This lead to me to reducing the width of the barriers by half, increasing the speed they come towards you, and adding a limit to the downwards velocity of the player. I also increased the distance between the top and the bottom barriers to 40 pixels. Not to mention my purposeful exploit was far too easy to find than I thought. A few friends discovered it in just over a minute of play, and with someone tweeting me a score of 82 I decided to remove the exploit. I planned to add a more secret exploit in a later version but never did.

Version 3

It was in the third version I made one of the most significant changes, the ability to break through barriers. Breaking through a barrier would let you keep playing but reset your score. This was to make failure less frustrating and to decrease the chances of a player "rage-quitting". I honestly thought this was an obvious idea, but I haven't seen a single game in the whole jam do this, none of them. That said I've only played about 50% of the games in the jam, so please tell me if you find one with that mechanic. I also made breaking through a barrier satisfying in itself by adding particles and a sound effect.

Version 4

The next big change I made was to the aspect ratio of the game. It was originally 320x320 this meant you could only see one barrier on screen at any time, often making your high-score a bit luck based as you couldn't plan ahead. I changed the resolution to something more normal so you could see 2 sets of barriers on screen at once. Now the scoring was more fair I also added scoreboard support via http://gmscoreboard.com/. I really wish I added this support earlier as my game got a lot more attention earlier in the jam. It was still very interesting to see the different scores though, and the numerous people who gave up with a score of one. Some people might see that as a bad thing, but I loved it.

Version 5

The final update was mainly a cosmetic one, I made the barriers slowly close as the player moved towards them. I really like this changed as it made you feel more of a bad-ass when you made it through the gap. Some people said the closing barriers actually made the game harder, but this was an illusion. The distance was actually changed to 44 pixels making the game easier.

Over the course of this jam I learned a huge amount, thank you to anyone who played Flappy FUUUU whether you liked it or hated it. Look out for my #cyberpunkjam game!