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Heads up: this is not super educational in the way that is generally understood in the “educational games” narrative. It is not designed to teach something, but I learned a LOT as part of its creation. So, making this game was educational for me. And, as I will be teaching a class on digital game design next semester, it will be educational for my future students, too.
Play here:
What is it?
A fun, roguelite(?) version of the traditional UK children’s game “Conkers.”
Conkers is a two-player game. You each hang a horse chestnut (the conker) on a thread. Players take turns hitting each other’s conker until they burst in a nutty explosion.
Learn more about Conkers on Wikipedia
Conkers! Source
Why did I make it?
I’ve been wanting to delve into digital game design for a while, but have had motivational issues when it comes to some of the big engines like Unity and Unreal. Nothing really took off. I felt lost a lot of the time trying to code in those environments. They are huge, with millions of moving parts that just don’t seem to come together easily (at least, they don’t for me). But, I have some experience programming in PICO-8, and I enjoyed it. Yes, it is clearly not as powerful as some of the big engines, and has its own problems, but it’s … cozy, rapid, elegant, delightful.
But, not being a big, main, commercial game engine held me back from wanting to dive in. I felt that I would be wasting my time. This train of thought itself was the biggest waste of time. All the time I could have been working on games, I was procrastinating on how I should make games instead.
The creation of my PICO-8 video essay, and participating in the various PICO-8 communities, started a fire burning in me. I started to realize that there isn’t a single “correct” way to be making games. There aren’t good and bad platforms. It’s all about passion and creativity and having fun and sharing. We don’t NEED to be aiming for a Steam release or a commercial success. Game design can be just friends making things for each other, and as Zep (creator of PICO-8) said:
“[It’s OK to] just make something, capture the concept, […] move on to something else and to feel okay to do that.”
Zep
Game Development GIFs
The best way for me to show how this game developed from concept to completion is with the gifs. I took these gifs throughout the game’s development as it progressed. This was a HUGE motivational boost as I could see the game improve from week to week. I highly recommend others do the same on their own game development adventures!
I hope this post is inspirational to others. Furthermore, I could not have made this without the tutorials and carts of other PICO-8 enthusiasts. Particularly: Krystman of Lazy Devs Academy.
- Krystman’s itch page — https://krystman.itch.io/
- Lazy Devs Academy YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdT68dsulMFouI2InvXWM5w
Thanks for reading
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