Star Jammer

Star Jammer is a run and gun platformer or Metrovania style game written for GB30 Jam. There are some fairly strict limitations, particularly with graphics: resolutions is limited to 160x144 and only 4 colours can be used at any one time.

The sounds has also been limited to 8-bit style effects and music limited to chiptunes. Other than that, the game is fairly standard-fare, the time limitation didn't allow for much experimentation and inovation.

There are 3 levels with a variety of hazards and items to pick up and use or purchase from the various shops.

I'm reasonably pleased with how this game turned out within the allowed timeframe. Most areas could be expanded upon and make for a much larger game as a whole with colour graphics and a larger resolution.

Play in browser

PicoShot

PicoShot is a small game currently being developed for LOWREZJAM 2019. The main restriction for the jam is the game has to be crammed into a tiny 64x64 pixel space, though these pixels can be scaled up afterwards, otherwise the game would be the size of a postage stamp.

Initially it was tricky to get everything working at such a low resolution but I found it’s easier to work with floating-point numbers behind the scenes and only snap to a pixel boundary when setting the position of sprites, tilemaps etc. There are probably multiple ways of doing this.

The game itself is a vertical scrolling shooter that will feel familiar to everyone who enjoys the genre. There is currently a single level to play, though it is quite hard - and there’s a boss at the end if you can get that far!

Play in browser