Marble Quest

After poking around microStudio for some time, I thought the time was right to embark on a larger project to test its potential as a full game development tool.

When it came to deciding on the game I opted to take inspiration from a recent Ludum Dare where the theme was unstable. The real Ludum Dare is a Jam where you are limited to publishing your game in 2 or 3 days (depending on the format you choose to participate in) starting from scratch. Let's just say I far exceed any time limit and the Pareto Principle strikes again.

The game is almost complete right now. Almost, because there is always room for improvement, but the code can start to grow out of control and things look like a mess, so you should refactor everything and never release anything. Also, it's pretty important to end projects and then (only then!) start a new, better one.

This was mainly due to the lack of a well-defined plan for the game itself, very little free time to spend in this hobby, and a bad tendency to experiment too much with the microStudio environment (not my fault it's so much fun). Yet I had a few set goals that I never change:

• First, to produce a complete game, from start to finish, and not just a nice demo.
• Second, the game must be playable on mobile (even on low end devices) but with good aesthetics

Thanks to @Gilles and some great performance improvements in the transpiled code I can say that the game is consistently playable on a wide range of devices without lag but still visually pleasing.

For the artistic part I have to thank @Vampirics (maybe not so active in this forum but a friend I've been working with for a long time) who made all the assets and provided many suggestions for game play.

Overall my experience has been very good with microStudio, I think the platform can already be considered a good choice for indie game development. Sure nothing fancy like the latest AAA engine, but with great power comes great responsibility... and often not even that if you can't find a way to manage it.

I hope you enjoy this game and play it and I really look forward to your feedback

https://microstudio.dev/i/HomineLudens/marblequest/

It's an amazing game, you rock!

I hope to see it in the stores soon, would be really cool :-)

Amazing game! I especially want to note the nice graphics and animation, as well as the cool transition from the menu right to the game, cool :) For mobile devices, it will go very well. I'm a bad programmer (yet) - I can't effectively read someone else's code, so I'll ask you a question: will this game store the player's progress or do we always restart from the first level? And where do you plan to place the game?

DANG, it has it all.

• Mobile play
• Random Levels
• QUESTS

You blew me away :) WELL DONE

Thank you all for the warm feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying the game and it's always gratifying to hear some enthusiasm for something you build.

Regarding @costantine_retrogamer's questions:

• the game is meant to be played in quick standalone sessions. The levels are procedural so no two games are the same. With some experience you may find that some forks are better than others to complete the quest and get a higher score. Ideally it might be possible to memorize the location and route generated. But I'm not sure if it would improve the gameplay.

• As for the question of where I plan to put the game, I'm actually still considering whether to publish it on itch.io or CrazyGames. Publishing it on the Play Store and Amazon store are both challenging and rewarding possibilities. I'm still not completely satisfied with some aspects and some cuts I've applied to some ideas. From the other side I hope publish more game made with microStudio will help to grow the community.

@HomineLudens basically, the game can be hosted on both platforms (itch.io , Crazy games), it seems there are no restrictions in this. And as for any cuts to your ideas - you can support the game with updates in the future! As for the Play Store and Amazon Store - yes, there are nuances there. You can wait a long time for the game to be added to the store and many other problems. But it's a damn necessary experience! My humble opinion is that this game is suitable for the Play Store.

@HomineLudens and besides, yes - it will greatly support the community

Just checked in on microStudio for the first time in a while - and it's safe to say that this game blew me away! Even for mobile game standards, it's incredibly polished, fun, and looks great (how did you have the patience to finish this)? Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing what comes next (whether it is updates or an entirely new game)!

P.S I agree with Constantine_RetroGamer and gilles, I would love to see this in the play store, itch.io etc.

how did you have the patience to finish this That's a real good question.

It is not that making a game is hard from a coding point of view. Often is not the hardest part, not as hard as keep polishing messed code until the game come out and then keep working on it to complete all the parts around.

Fortunately, I found a way to work around the problem afflict lots of people making games. Simply I've found someone to work with, and so the game is not only mine anymore and I feel gentle duty to accomplish it till the end.

And completing a game is a really nice feeling, tried it once you can't help but try it again.