[DevLog] I Am; - 1.01

This is my final Devlog on my entry for NokiaJam4: I Am; ...It's a short interactive experience about positivity.

Play:

"I Am;" is a short experience to help you think positively or at least increase awareness of your bad thoughts. This interactive experience was inspired by the mobile App "I Am; Daily Affirmations."

• You can play I Am; on Itch.io website.

Background:

I Am; isn't a game & more like a reminder of positive thoughts. The idea is to have short positivity messages that you can navigate or allow to auto-scroll.

I explained the inspiration behind the idea, as well as some of the challenges I faced while creating the prototype in my previous Devlog: 0.9.

I tried to design it as close to the old Nokia phone as possible. The fonts provided by the jam community helped massively. Ver.0.9 had around 20+ positivity messages

Controls:

• Right: Right Arrow/D/Numpad6

• Left: Left Arrow/A/Numpad4

• Audio ON/OFF: Alt/Q/Numpad7

• Auto: Space/Down/Up/S/W/Numpad5

• Click/Touch Controls: Tap to change messages. Hold for Auto.

Features:

• 1-Bit: Only the two nostalgic colors of the old Nokia phone.
• Nokia Sound Effects.
• 40~ Positive Thoughts to go through.
• No subscription plan: A common thing in Nokia3310's time. Can you believe it? This is considered a feature nowadays.

Dev Log #2

For more context, read Devlog #1.

I added a few improvement & changes in ver.1.01 over the version I released a few days ago. The most important change is the addition of the sound effects, but also the touch support.

I did add a number of positivity messages, but it wasn't the focus of this update.

I'm not very used to sound-design in my games, of all things I do put in my games, I think it's my weakest skill. Luckily, I didn't need to make any SFX for this project, because NokiaJam management had provided more than enough Nokia-like sound files in their free Jam resources. I only used the sound files by "trix" since theirs were the most comprehensive. I still had to to choose which sounds to incorporate, and that's also a sound-design skill I'm still learning. (If you played it, tell me if I did a good job.)

I considered the project finished after adding the sound effects, (I even numbered that version 1.0.) I spent a while after that taking animated screenshots for the itch.io page of "I Am;."

This is the first time I needed to create .gifs since I switched to Linux. I downloaded Peek for that, and it worked really well for me.

It was only after publishing the link & getting feedback that I thought users might run this on touch-screen mobiles, so I added mouse & touch support. It barely took half an hour, as Construct 3's built-in touch events are easy to use.

Adding audio & touch required too many events. If I wasn't familar with Construct's workflow before, I wouldn't have enough experience to shortcut my programming in fewer events. If so, this project wouldn't be possible with Construct 3 Free version's limitations.

Working on this positivity messages app improved my GameDev muscles noticably. I had multiple ideas for new projects while working on it. I learned so much during these past few days, and I hope to learn & create more from now on.

Thanks for reading & See you in the next Project!

• This Devlog is also on Read.cash.