Recently I updated my site and added the game zone with my first game “Sun is going down”! In this blog I want to share my thoughts about creating small games, my experience and a bit more about the game itself. 
Like many other creative people who play videogames, I want to create my own one day. I even have a pretty solid base for starting that: I can draw, know how to manage files, have an unfinished degree in programming and created a few mods for other games. But I haven’t enough time and experience and can’t get more because of time. The only experience I had – ASCII clone snake in C# that I made with a teacher back in 2013 lol. Starting something big without practice may create problems like a ruined code base, lack of motivation and long, exhausting process without an end.
So, a lot of cool gamedev peeps recommend starting small: tests, prototypes, recreation of classic, small games. It didn’t sound exciting until I discovered PICO-8. NOW it sounds fun! I even start my first shoot’em up, learn stuff from Lazy Devs (can’t recommend him enough!) but I’m stopped in july’25 on episode #23 because of the lack of time and ideas. I want, eventually, to get back and finish it. Maybe even pretty soon
But yeah, even PICO-8 was too big. I needed to create something even smaller, even simpler to give myself that gamedev dopamine that will fuel me for future projects. And then, a few weeks ago, I watched a video about wareware that youtube recommended to me. It’s also a pretty funny and simple engine that I want to try later, but for now it reminds me about other engines bitsy. I had a few days off so I decided it was an opportunity to finally do something. So, I grab myself and force myself to start and finish something.
I was thinking about recreating one of the moments from my solo-DnD game with my satyr druid and goblin ranger. But drawing satyr in 8×8 pixels was too hard so now it’s two unnamed goblins. The camp setting gave me an idea about gameplay where you need to collect some sticks. But what’s the point? Can you lose in this game? It makes me want to add some side quests, animals, mechanics. At the end I decided to make it a game, where you try to open all the endings. I think it turned out pretty fun to play, especially for games on bitsy.
About this engine. Bitsy is pretty simple but actually more powerful than I thought. All scripts work as “dialogs”, have two main entities like sprites and items that work differently. I know about hacks and other versions of this engine, with more power and possibilities, but for the first game I decided to use pure bitsy as part of the challenge. Nothing that room-clones and invisible items can’t fix haha. Also was worried about getting lost in unfamiliar scripts without GUI. The web-app of the engine starts lagging at the and tho so I think it’ll not be the best option for actually big games if you, for some reason, want it to use.
Anyway, I had two days and I spent them making this game. The most important mission for me was to actually finish it, because of course, at the final step when the game was finished to 80% I started feeling like I wanted to do something else. But with some force and motivation like “after you finish you can play some factorio as you wanted”(lol) I did it! When it was finished, I gave a link to my friends and asked them after. They all like it to some degree, nobody makes it fully(but some was pretty close) but, most importantly, they all played as intended! Most of them understand how time works. Everybody found the boat and fish and a lot found the puma. So, I think it’s a success. Yes, it’s simple, has rough edges and too much backtracking, but it’s still a game. Also the soundtrack! Bitsy had a very friendly interface for non-musicians so I even made some noises hehe. Nothing special but better than nothing.
Is this my last game on bitsy? Hm, I don’t know yet. Maybe! Not sure about pure bitsy, but bitsyHD, bitsy color or bipsy is more than possible. Anyway, I think I should spend more time on other, more powerful and polished engines like pico-8 or even godot. Is this the last time when I do something with those goblins? Oh no, I like them enough, I’ll definitely reuse them for future ideas.
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Thank you for reading! As a reward, here are all the endings and how to get them. About timer – it doesn’t count your irl time or steps, but interactions with objects. All sprites and items, repeat counts, the only exception is animals
- Collect 10 sticks.
- Lost. Just don’t get to camp in time. You can watch flower all evening for example.
- Collect 10 sticks and make the wolf happy. Wolf want stick, here is at least 12 on the map so don’t worry!
- Collect 10 sticks and make puma happy. She lives in the mountains and wants a fish. You can catch it in a lake with a worm or pure luck.
- Collect 10 sticks and make animals happy.
- Collect 10 sticks and catch a fish. Don’t give it puma, just bring it to camp
- Steal 10 sticks from another camp. Any interaction with brushwood give you ending with an ambush
- Lost but make wolf happy.
- Lost but make puma happy.
- Lost but make animals happy.
- Collect 10 sticks and make animals happy AND catch a fish. Secret ending! Actually no, I just can’t do math and firstly did two 9th and was too lazy to edit everything lol. It’s a bit tricky since you need some luck in fishing and patience. Worm give you 100% fish but without it’s still 25%. You have no room for error and you have to be lucky to catch two fish in a row. Anyway, for some reason I put the boat too far from water so it’s maybe annoying to get. Anyway, if you will – thank you so much!