Shrimp boom playjam entry

Hi, this is my entry for the playjam game jam found here, theme " Something's Missing"

i think its a 3 day jam but iv not been spending all my time on this so not sure how done itl be at the end.
Had the idea for a shmup where you play as a pistol shrimp for a while.
y inital link to the theme was that the enemies would be the something missing you but the idea expanded to you missing limbs. you pick them upas you play throguh and can get up to 4 at a time.
card

I started with the 2020 shmup example in the sdk ,made it horozontal, and swapped out the sprites

I knew the background was gona be moving horozontaly but i also wanted it to be mid grey tone with no strobing so i used horisontal lines to avoid strobing.
shrimp boom1

Heres the first gif of me getting the arms to add when you pick them up but not doing double shot yet
Also added some bubbles but they dont work properly get
and a new starfish enemy with a start at a very manual system to create levels
I made a level time counter and do a bunch of if statements to add enemes at specific times and positions.
Each enemy type will have their own movment patern
shrimp boom3

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Another update
learned how to rotate sprites with help from "jm || funfunfun" on the discord
So now my starfish rotates, did notice the docs say not to use rotate sprites too much as it could make things slow.
Iv not figured out animation yet so its a good wya to add a little more dynamism for now.
I fixed the bubbles and started adding the boss dolfin.
and added a crank method for shooting- just testing out for now
Also added a simple gameover event
shrimp boom4

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had a look for screenshake and fond it at the end of this tutorial., can basicaly wholesale copy paste the screenshake lua file and call it from your other scripts

pd.display.setOffset(shakeX, shakeY)
shrimp boomscreenshake
heres the shake in action

Set up a holding page for the game before i run out of time and forget.

im begining to regret my way of spawning levels. heres my map sketch
iv got a number going up all the time and when it reaches these numbers i spawn in the enemeies

juust a whole bunch of this
if stagetime == 100 then

    createSeaEnemy(410, 50)

end

if stagetime == 125  then

    createSeaEnemy(410, 170)

end

if stagetime == 150  then

    createSeaEnemy(410, 50)

end

if stagetime == 175  then

    createClownFish(400,100)

end

if stagetime == 200  then

    createClownFish(400,100)

    createArmPickup()

end

if stagetime == 225  then

    createClownFish(400,100)

end

if stagetime == 250  then

    createAngler(400,180)

end

if stagetime == 275  then

    createAngler(400,60)

end

if stagetime == 300  then

    createClownFish(400,100)

end

You could store the stage time along with the coordinates in a table, checking the next*. table index to see if the stage time matches?

*You should keep track of your position in the table to avoid scanning it from the beginning every time.

thanks il have to look into that, is a table some kind of array?

the final jam build entry is now up on the itch page.
I did a bunch of optomisations to amke it run better on device.
-the main one was over time it was just droping loads of frames, i suspected i may not be destroying sprites properly and that was it. most of the enemies were never getting destroyed the old <> wrong way round bug

  • I added a cool down timer to the shoot for gameplay and because i noticed it too a hit when there was loads of bullets on screen.
  • i removed the random amount of change to the background bubbles everyframe. dosnt look as good but i assme thats probubly not the best for performance.
    -also added a wtapping paper image whitch is the firts time iv tried this.
    -didint get proper game loop/ states working so ijust added a screne that instantly moves away and a black out screen at the end.
  • curantly have to manualy reset the game to try again.

It dose run infinitly but usses the same level layout whitch feels a bit caotic and i probubly would have been better doing it all random for the jam.
I was also gona try and ramp up the dificulty with each next run by adding a multiplication to my time level progreess scale number but i realaises beacuse i set the events on 25 increments it would quickly miss loads of spawns, posibly the first time iv saw use for a different base number system
Heres the game in action
shrimp boom 7

Exactly. Everything is a table in Lua. They're arrays with super powers.

Game looks fantastic. Well done.

If you were to continue working in it, would you craft proper stages with planned progression and end of stage bosses?

thanks, il have to up my code game. getting there slowly.

Ye that would be the plan , a bunch of planned out levels, with my optimisations i made the curant system could work but its a pain. might look inot json loading so i can just lay it out visualy.

the dolphin is kinda like an end stage boss i just dont have any fanfair when u kill him, then it repetes but iv got most of the systems i need to build out a bigger game from this.
Id love to add loads more powerups and enemy movment patterns with more multi hit enemies and ones that can shoot at you like clams , spitting pearls etc.

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