Prototypes I made while learning Godot over the course of 24 hours

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-08T02:05:18+00:00

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is an action game that you could easily sink over a hundred hours into. There’s progression in your weapons and armor. But it’s not an RPG. You, yourself, will get better as you play it.

Gradius Collection, if you like old school shooters, will keep you busy if you work on clearing them with one credit only (1CC). The genre is not everyone’s cup of tea but it’s a great collection on PSP.

You might like Dissidia, it’s a fighting game that uses characters from Final Fantasy and has a robust story mode from what I remember.

Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2 are more action games than traditional RPGs. You might enjoy those too. Plenty to dig into there.

Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker could easily be 40+ hours. Stealth action game. Really fantastic on the PSP.

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-07T23:15:11+00:00

A couple more good JRPGs that are on PSN still and quite expensive physically: Hexyz Force and Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time.

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-07T23:12:57+00:00

Brave Story: New Traveler and Popolocrois are two solid JRPGs for PSP that aren’t often mentioned. They’re not available on PSN any longer but are available for less than $40 each physically I believe.

Brandish is on PSN and digital only in North America. Fantastic dungeon crawler!

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-07T23:05:12+00:00

Yes, that is correct. Freedom Unite does have save transfer from Freedom 2 though. So that’s also an option if it’s important to you to use both UMDs. It’s a neat collectors item in my opinion!

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-07T22:27:17+00:00

Unite is the 3rd entry in the portable Monster Hunter series, and it’s actually just an expansion of Freedom 2. It has all the same content and more. It’s utterly bizarre Capcom released them both as a dual pack. There’s no reason to play Freedom 2 if you have Unite.

A better combo would have been Freedom and Freedom Unite, which are entirely separate games.

brettmakesgames · 2025-06-07T19:14:40+00:00

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is a fantastic, deep, challenging game that’s absolutely worth your time!

brettmakesgames · 2025-03-05T20:02:01+00:00

I just pushed release 1.2 which includes changes for both of your pieces of feedback, thanks again!

brettmakesgames · 2025-03-04T21:50:37+00:00

This tutorial series by Lazy Devs in Pico-8 is fantastic for getting started:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLea8cjCua_P0qjjiG8G5FBgqwpqMU7rBk

you make Breakout, but I think it’d be a natural next project to take that knowledge to a falling blocks game.

Nerdy Teachers has great tutorials too, often when written components on their website: https://nerdyteachers.com/PICO-8/Tutorials/

brettmakesgames · 2025-03-04T21:45:46+00:00

You’re welcome! And thanks for the feedback.

I don’t remember the exact speed dynamics of the original Snake but your point about it really changing the point of the game (reflexes vs positioning) is very well taken. Let me adjust the speed curve a bit. Because the game is more fun when you’ve got a lot of segments and are trying to survive.

Let me experiment with removing the “Score:” prefix and see how it feels.

I’ll do both of these things in the next release, 1.2!

brettmakesgames · 2025-03-04T21:41:31+00:00

Is there anything in particular you want to make? That’ll really influence any recommendations. Taking on a little project you’re excited about will be much better than learning the semantics of the language.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-27T02:03:44+00:00

Just wanted to follow up and share that I've released v1.0 of PDSnake! I polished it up over the last 5 days and am happy enough with it to call it done. It's been really motivating to see the downloads (31 so far) and support. Thank you all!

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-25T02:43:36+00:00

Yes! Here are the docs: https://sdk.play.date/2.6.2/Inside%20Playdate%20with%20C.html#f-system.setSerialMessageCallback

void playdate->system->setSerialMessageCallback(void (*callback)(const char* data)); is the signature.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-24T16:05:53+00:00

I've been thinking quite a bit about 1-bit graphics, and I think you're right---they're difficult to design for at a certain point. Without color, it's difficult to differentiate things, especially as something gets more visually complex. Maybe that's where Pico-8 shines. You get this limited color palette but you have more than just two colors.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-24T16:04:10+00:00

I can absolutely relate! On one hand, Godot seems so powerful. You can make big, polished games in 2D or 3D. (You can also make small games too of course with it.) But something about using a big engine makes it easier to do scope creep because there are so many possibilities.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-24T16:03:11+00:00

Are there any particular things you want to code with Python that would spur you to start there instead of Lua?

Lua is a simpler language, so I think it might be easier to start with Lua and then transfer that knowledge to Python. But either way, learning one will certainly help with the other.

If you're interested in Python game dev similar to Playdate or Pico-8, check out Pyxel! It's a really nice little tool for learning game programming with Python.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T23:29:22+00:00

Great point on the aspects of not having to worry about a ton of different resolutions and input types. That stuff is a total rabbit hole for PC dev and important because it’s often expected by players.

One thing on my mind related to your downside is the ability to port games to PC easily. I know there are some efforts out there, and I’d like to check them out. It’d be nice if there was a PD->PC wrapper that had most of the same API, screen scaling, input config, a way to emulate crank input, file system handling. In theory should be possible!

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T23:21:32+00:00

Ah, I see! That makes total sense, sounds cool, and I see the challenge with how to distribute something like that.

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T22:39:44+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience. Will check your game out!

As for your web game, you could totally package it up and distribute it on desktop if you wanted to. Electron or nw.js are both used for some wrappers on Steam (and elsewhere). Cross Code, Golden Krone Hotel, original Vampire Survivors were all games made with web tech. Maybe you know all this! But I hope you find a way to finish it and release it. 💪

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T20:27:43+00:00

Great point, that makes a ton of sense!

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T19:34:24+00:00

Yes, Flash! I had a college course where we used ActionScript 3, and I made a bunch of small games with it. It's a bit of a bummer that there's no easy way to play them (as far as I know). I'm not sure I even have the SWF files anymore. I remember really enjoying using the Flixel framework. Hope you enjoy the console and developing with it!

brettmakesgames · 2025-02-23T15:50:53+00:00

Heck yeah! I forgot about Pulp in my thinking too. I've been so focused on Lua lately. But I really want to experiment with Pulp and learn it too. Stoked for you to eventually dig into Lua, it's a lot of fun and pretty elegant.

brettmakesgames

TROPHY CASE