Postmortem for Coco Cloud Radical

My entry for Godot Wild Jam #25 was a unique project for me. Rather than creating a game based on a brand-new idea, I chose to rework a game concept my friends and I had 2 years ago, that happened to perfectly fit the theme. (The Godot Wild Jam discord server thought it would be fine to reuse an old idea, considering that all the code, art, and music was made from scratch during the jam period, with the exception of the credits art.)

I was really excited to make a game where the player character is a cloud that rains on things to make them happy. Katamari Damacy was a big inspiration. I also wanted the game to have LocoRoco vibes. What makes those games special is the  DETAILS; the worlds in those games are just so dang fun to explore. Likewise, for my "cloud game," I envisioned a big map with tons of fun details to find. In my design docs, I listed about 20 objects I wanted the cloud to be able to rain on. Many of them had unique mechanics, such as walking around. I only implemented 6 of these ideas, and they all behaved the same way, but that’s okay.

Here are some lessons learned:

1. Change is good! This is the first jam I've done with Godot, and it's also the first time I've used Ableton Live Lite to try to make a finished song. Both worked out better than expected! I want to continue upgrading my process in the future; next time, I’d like to try Aseprite instead of Gimp for the art, and I’d also like to collaborate with someone else using Github.
2. Godot, as it turns out, does not have many tools for detecting whether or not a CollisionShape2D contains a Position2D. I needed to do this to be able to tell which environmental object my cloud was directly over. I ended up using a quick and dirty solution, which was to detect overlap between the “monsters” (turtles, birdbaths, etc.) and a 2x2 square CollisionShape2D located under the cloud. But this led to fiddly, buggy results, and it made it so that I couldn’t place two “monsters” very close to each other. Cleaning up the detection code for what’s under the cloud would be a top priority for a post-jam version.
3. I decided early on to make my game camera be at a 3/4 angle. I didn't want it to be side-view because I wanted the player to be able to explore in 2 dimensions, and I didn't want it to be completely top down because then the cloud would cover up what it's raining on.  But this decision meant that my art had to be drawn at a ¾ angle. I really struggled with this style of art, especially when it came to drawing people.
4. As usual, overscoping my game was an issue. On the final day, I was still adding new mechanics and reworking the whole game. There was a bunch of stuff I really wanted to add, but couldn’t. And I submitted my game so close to the deadline, that I rushed through and messed up the submission process, and later had to request the mods to let my game into the jam. (Luckily, they were kind enough to do so.)

Overall, this was the most fun jam I've ever done. I really liked the 9-day length of the jam, since it gave me enough time to try to make a polished product. The Godot Wild Jam discord was a really fun, friendly community, and their "help" channel bailed me out multiple times. Special thanks go out to Plant Monster for the credits art, and to the BYOB subforum for generating ideas. You know who you are.

Click here for a full version of the credits art, in all its watercolor glory!