Dora TheLesbianFrog Appreciation Thread – Danielle's Making a Thing Discussion

Games Video Games
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Have you been watching Danielle’s game development streams on Twitch? If not, here are some links:

Episode 0 (stream starts at 1:30 and ends abruptly due to technical problems with the stream): the concept of the game and the main character art are developed.

Episode 1 (stream starts at 4:20): the cast of characters expands with Dora’s axolotl girlfriend Axl Rosa, a background map is drawn, controls are added for movement.

Episode 2 (stream begins at 6:28): work begins on collision detection and a kissing mechanic is introduced along with a sound effect.

Episode 3 (stream starts at 6:00): the background scenery is expanded with a parking lot, kisses are standardized into discrete events to replace the earlier system of unending squeaking, a bird gets a makeover, the cultural implications of a potential jealousy mechanic are considered, and an NPC speaks her first words.

Episode 4 (stream starts at 6:37): a speech bubble goes on a long journey of self-discovery to find its place in the world, snogging gets more loquacious.

Episode 5 (stream starts at 5:08): real cats and a puppy are brought in to help the game’s development, the puppy is wearing a bow-tie and he’s a good boy, yes he is, meanwhile, within the game, a bird gives out angry vibes, and a rumor system is introduced to stir up conflict.

I didn’t know anything about PICO-8 prior to watching these streams other than it had been used to make some neat games, but the stream has been surprisingly interesting and inspiring. Watching someone work through the complexities of learning a tool and building a game from scratch (or close to it) is a great way of making game development approachable. It also helps that so far the scope of the game has been managed well to allow meaningful progress to be made in each video.

I’ve also been enjoying the “game” of trying to be helpful in chat. It’s pretty difficult within the constraints of Twitch chat to not be accidentally unhelpful or confusing (on top of which I also contend with the limitations of “not knowing some stuff” and “sometimes being wrong”), but navigating that is part of the fun.

What are your thoughts on this game and/or stream? Are there other good PICO-8 or general development streams out there that you enjoy?

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Have really enjoyed the growth of PICO-8 over the last few years. It seems to both be a good learner platform and give accessibility to retro enthusiasts who maybe don’t have the time to get deep into actual homebrew/retro development stuff. It’s just endless de/remakes and people having a good time with building games (so I’d say is very much in the same camp as the other tools talked about as democratising game development). A few fun links:

PIC-Oh Mummy!

Marballs 2

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So I’m loving the streams and I’m caught up through Episode 1 right now but there’s one thing that is really bothering me and it’s really silly but the code indentation is really grating. It’s not Danielle’s fault either a lot of people make these mistakes starting off!

The general rule of thumb is to decide at the beginning if you are going to use four spaces or two and stick to it. When indenting you want your begging and ending to always be on the same indention level this makes the code much easier to read when you come back to it or if someone else needs to read over it.

An example:
image

Looking forward to the rest of the streams!

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I hope it’s okay to create fan-games around Dora.

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Uh oh, the religious argument has been named. *ducks* :smile:

I’m not sure if there’s a P8-format (similar to clang-format or rustfmt) but something like that wouldn’t be a bad idea as something that standardises all of the code layout to conform to a spec/style guide. Personally, I think the next generation of IDEs and VCSs should actually fix all of this stuff for us:

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I have only watched the first episode but I love watching Danielle talk about how great the game is as-is everytime she runs it to see of the latest development works as intended.

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Seconding this. I’ve played with Pico8 before but I’ve usually tried to make very mechanics rich games. It’s nice to see Danielle taking the opposite approach of building something bit by bit.

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This has been a fun series. In the chat during the streams, there has been a lot of interest in Pico-8, both from people who already use Pico-8 and people who are curious about trying Pico-8. I was wondering if maybe we should use this thread or make a new one specifically for Pico-8 where we could have a safe comfortable space for people new to gamedev or Pico-8 to ask questions, where people could form up to do collaborations, and just generally make a chill Waypoint Pico-8 community.

If anyone has any Pico-8 questions, feel free to message me.

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I discovered that I’ve got pico-8 already due to having bought the voxatron bundle years ago. It should be fun - I’ve got a few very basic ideas already.

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:smile:

Click through for gif animation:

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Discovering pico 8 has been super cool!! I’ve also been watching bridgs dev’s videos to try and understand things better

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I made some fanart for the series.

snap2018-03-30-16-21-54
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I’d definitely be interested in a pico-8 specific thread!

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Ok, I suppose I will try my hand at making the thread myself.

Any information or content that anyone would like in the OP?

First thread name to come to mind was “Pico-8 and You Can Too!”
Someone could probably come up with something better.

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Pico-8: It’s really great!

Also you can change thread title at a later date here :slight_smile: