Hi, there! I've decided to enter this tornado game into the 39th "Improve My Game Jam." Woohoo! The rest of this post will be kind of a record of where I started, so I can track my improvement. This will involve some (maybe self-indulgent) explaining of why I made this, how it ended up in this state, and some concrete goals I'd like to accomplish in the upcoming jam (subject to change). If you're not interested in that, then bye-bye! Thanks for reading this far c:

Alright, so. I've flirted with making games for a good chunk of my life, now. I've never really stuck with it and, if I'm being honest with myself, it will probably never be anything more than a hobby. But that's ok! I really love doing it. It tickles my brain in a very satisfying way.

In recent years I made a handful of projects using PICO-8, and even released a few of them (I'm especially proud of "Attack of the 5-Foot Fish"). I love this program, and will likely keep working with it when the fancy strikes. But, as it often goes in life, I got distracted by other things and stopped making games for a while. Last week I stopped ignoring the itch. I decided to learn LÖVE and enter two game jams, all in the same few-day period. For some reason. Whatever works, I guess?

My games didn't turn out great. I expected this. I gave myself an extremely limited time to jump back into development, learn a new environment, and make two games. But I accomplished my goal of reminding myself that this is something I relish. When I saw the "Improve My Game Jam" coming up, it seemed too perfect. Now I get to give one of these projects more attention, and develop it into something I can, hopefully, be excited to show people.

I decided on this tornado game over "Tetrarium". For one, it's more in my wheelhouse. I am still adjusting back to coding, so it makes sense to work on something I already feel a bit stronger with. It also feels a bit more complete--neither is close to a finished product, but "Tetrarium" would require an almost complete rebuild of the game logic to work how I'd like it to. I can work on that later. And finally... I just love the control scheme I have here. I'd really like to see where I can go with this concept.

So! Goals for the jam.

• Change the movement
  • As it is, rotating the mouse only increases or decreases the horizontal position of the tornado. Instead, I'd like to increase or decrease the speed of the tornado. This will let you build up speed, or intentionally slow down. Seems more interesting to me.
• Add music
  • Music is another love of mine. And some of my favorite parts of other projects has been putting the music together. I didn't give myself time for this in the jams, but I'd really like to come up with at least one track.
• Give the game structure
  • This is pretty vague for a "concrete" goal, but I'm not really sure what direction to go with this yet. I could make it arcadey, like "Attack of the 5-Foot Fish" or "Snapped!", but I'd like to push myself a little and make something a little more defined if I can. But what would "levels" look like for something like this? Is there some sort of narrative I could work in? I don't know. That'll be something I discover along the way c: