Greetings!

It's been a while since my last game jam, so when I heard one was coming up hosted by Vinesauce Joel (Vargskelethor), I knew I had to jump on that! For those unfamiliar he's a variety streamer popularly known for playing unlicensed games, so making a jam game around the theme of bootlegs was right up my alley.

Because of my schedule, I could only do the majority of game making later in the 2 week time frame. So outside of sketches and concept art I had a week to code the game. Regardless, I was able to get the game out on-time and this devlog will chronicle some of the key points of the game making process!

Sketchbook

The jam's theme of Bootlegs was unveiled April 1st and that's when I sketched up the concept of a game-within-a-game simulator. I felt inspired by my experience of playing knock off systems and the hoops you have to go through to get it working. Despite being based on a theme I wanted to make it feel original, without an over reliance on references to have it make sense for most people.

I would return to my sketchbook throughout development to draft ideas. It was handy for making checklists which really helped in the later stages of development, revising what ideas were worthy of inclusion as time went on!

Key Art

As I couldn't do full game making until the second week, I made concept art early on featuring a skeleton. There was a rating based on how good your skeletons were so I knew they'd play a prominent role in this project. This skull key art was illustrated while observing reference images, so when I needed to do sprites in-game I could easily use this as a foundation.

Game Room

For the Game Room, I wanted to capture the cluttered feel of a tech nerd's desk. It's a summer night with the rain pouring down, the neighbours have stopped yapping and you're ready to game into the night before the storm hits! I wanted to illustrate that mood using a mix of dark and warm colours.

Originally it was all going to fit on one screen before realising that would be too claustrophobic, so I made it wider to hide  certain details off screen. It helped as you'd have to divert your attention away from the TV which made things more intense!

When making a game; you either start with code and think about what graphics would best fit afterwards, or you start with the graphics with a solid idea on how to code it later. I chose the latter as I felt confident given my years of game making experience. You get to a point where you start seeing code in your sleep. 

This project became something of a spiritual successor to my prior jam game Back to Work, a game about managing emails with a faulty laptop. So I was partly thinking about how to build on similar concepts presented in that game.

All the interactable elements of the game room were separated into different layers, I found a way to make the buttons glow when hovering over which really helped on the eyes. The explosion and smoke effects were added pretty late on but I feel they really added some dimension!

Pixel Art

My process of making sprites often starts by drawing things traditionally, then reworking it into pixel art afterwards. I drew a mock-up title screen, looping background and boss battle. I looked at a lot of pirate ship reference photos to make things feel right. The skull concept art served as a foundation when making the skeleton monsters. 

I pondered making the pixel art 16-bit or 32-bit to allow for more detailed pixel art. However bootlegs are commonly associated with the 8-bit era so I felt it was the more fitting look. Beauty comes from limitations and it was a fun challenge to rework the art into 16x16 tiles with the NES' colour palette.

Some parts weren't transferred due to time constraints, though given its a looping background I didn't mind so much. I was happy with how balanced the colours came out, being both vibrant but appropriately dark!

Despite being made with modern specs, I aimed to be as authentic to NES hardware as possible. All sprites were tile-based, used mirroring and were limited to 4 colours per object. Even the tiny forehead skull on the boss acts as an overlaid sprite, similar to how the Mega Man games handled huge boss sprites. 

I made all of these enemies in the hopes they'd appear in-game but I only had time to implement the regular skull. The boss was at least used for the title screen, which helped for the presentation!

Music & Sound

The most fun element working on this game was for the first time; I learnt to make NES music! I sprinted to find a program which led me to FamiStudio. I was impressed with how straightforward it was, so I was able to learn the program and compose a tune in a day!

I adapted the sea shanty "Drunken Sailor" for its catchy melody and association with pirates. NES music is generally separated into 4 separate channels, so certain instruments would pause when sound effects would play. I wanted to make that a priority to add to the NES authenticity. It also made sound corruption easier as certain channels go mute during that time.

For the "real world" foley, I took a famiclone and recorded myself pressing the buttons and tilting the cartridge. Even rattling the console was used for the battery crank, which was fitting as it reflects how faulty it feels. I tend to also mix sounds from the public domain for things not immediately reachable, such as lightning. 

Sometimes while testing, I felt it was nice to have the console off and listen to the rain with hits of occasional thunder. It's nostalgia of stormy summer nights combined with my fondness for old games.

Conclusion

I'm very happy with how things turned out! I always appreciate Jams for pushing myself and others to make something fresh, to work on concepts that may have otherwise gone unrealised. 

If you encounter a real world bootleg system hooked up to a power generator; don't crank it beyond the recommended amount!