The Best Bud — Leslie J. Winter

I worked with my partner and his brother to create The Best Bud for submission to the GMTK Game Jam 2020 on 12 July.

(This will involve an extraction, so if you are not particularly tech savvy, don’t hesitate to contact me, and I’ll do what I can to help you.)

It’s the first Game Jam I’ve participated in where we have actually had a project to submit. The previous Game Jam I participated in, I did not make it to the stage where a micro-site with screenshots of gameplay and text for the player would be included. I had a lot of fun describing the game for the hoards of future players:

Screenshot of the instructions and gameplay that you will see when you click to download the game

As the artist for the game, I created the background, rose in all five stages of growth, and the various grass blades.

Version of the background that was selected for the game

I learned a lot while using Krita for this project. It’s impressive that you can create something in a program without knowing, for example, how to only resize part of an object.

I also designed a machete that was left on the cutting room floor. I tried to time-box myself to about 5 minutes…. I’m sure I spent about 30 minutes on it, and plenty left to do.

Having a final project to submit was thrilling. It also showed the valuable lesson of pairing things down. We never would have had a game to submit if we hadn’t removed the vines and the machete. The old adage of “before leaving the house, take off one item of jewelry” is certainly outdated, but the sentiment can be applied to situations like this: leave your machete behind so that you can play the game. I’m sure I’m quoting someone there. Regardless, the importance of knowing what to cut is essential.

We’re able to create intricately detailed worlds in our minds. To creators, the balance between time management, detail, and “perfection” is a tricky one.

Machete Sprite

Usually, when I am creating quickly, I end up with several versions to choose from; I suspect this allows me to move on to the next part, rather than perseverating over design decisions and details that—yes, have an impact—but are not perhaps directly pertinent to the goal of the project. I even find myself doing this now; I’m dealing with the tension of not wanting to spend too long on this post, but also wanting to make sure I am eloquent and engaging. (Bit of a long shot on that, I’m afraid.)

That being said, I humbly toot my own horn for playing around with a new media. While it took a nudge from my loving partner, I am reinvigorated by playing around with a Wacom Tablet and Krita. (Shout out to Krita for being an awesome free, open-source processional painting program beginners like me can use.) I have LOADS to learn, but all I can do is try. Not too shabby for a pandemic.

With that, I’ll leave you with some other parts of the game that didn’t make it to the submitted version but were a blast to make:

Version of the background that was not selected. Oddly reminiscent of WWI battlefields to me for some reason.

Vines that may come out of the side frames to thwart the growing bud in later versions