Good morning again!

The last days been quite productive. Not a lot of new levels (Although we are now 5 levels into Blue Zone!) because my efforts have been elsewhere, but lets get right into things so you can see what's been happening!

Oh God It Keeps Growing!

So with the ever growing size of the game plus the ever expanding size of levels I've had to take some time for house keeping, cleaning up the layout inside GBStudio so I can keep track of things better. I hope in the future GBStudio will add some Quality of Life features like the ability to move multiple levels at once, put things into groups, and label those groups, but for now I've got things setup in a way that's clear for me to understand so that'll do!

A New Title + A Menu!

As the game grows it feels less like a quick cobbled together project and more like a real viable game people in the 90s may have played on their Gameboy Colors. As a result I've taken some time to go back and clean up the title screen. The version shown above is from the WIP build (more on that in a moment) but beyond that I've made the logo bigger and added some little dash lines under Bubble Frog to show him swimming up towards the Onigiri :D

I've also added a whole Main Menu to the game! I was gonna get bogged down in having a pointer that would move from option to option but realised having a Directional based menu is easier for me to tweak in the future AND quicker for the player. The menu gives the Credits screen a nicer home instead of requiring you press B on the "How to Play" screen, plus the nice new 'oh god that jumping sound is SO annoying shut up!' option to mute Bubble Frog! :D

You may have noticed the sexy new 'Continue' option too. If you have no save file this'll buzz at you when selected, but if you've been playing and shut off your game it'll take you to the start of the last level you was on! I've not been able to test if the Browser Based version of Bubble Frog will support saves (I get the feeling it may not) but I know it works on Emulators! :D

WIP Builds You Say?!

That's correct! As of a few hours ago (it retroactively applies to anyone who paid before it was added too) anyone who pays $2 or more for Bubble Frog will get access to WIP builds of the game as I develop it.

 The current version, the very sexily named "BubbleFrog_WIP_30012024_2.gb" allows you to access all 5 of the new levels I've built, plus the new main menu and jump audio toggle as well as some other tweaks like Bubble Frog's updated hitbox :D

I intended for this version of Bubble Frog to be free and plan to stick too that. All finished builds will be updated on the Bubble Frog itch.io page but I wanted to offer something fun for those who want to financially back the project without taking stuff away from the players who just want to enjoy the game for free (this means the finished builds ROM files will continue to be free too!).

Oh and feel free to record, stream, and show off the WIP build, just please don't go sharing the ROM file around as it cheapens the specialness of it for everyone else who pays <3

No Rest for the Wicked!

Well that's about it for todays update! Alas there isn't any time for me to stop now though! I still have levels to make, promotional stuff to work on, and I'm sure more stuff will pop up as I go that I'll wanna incorporate into the project (GBStudio just launched 3.2.0 which adds collision boxes for slopes as well as the ability to put tiles in front of sprites so who knows what ideas I'll get with those new toys!) so I better get back to work!

Oh and shout out to the lovely people on Threads that have been keeping me "sane" as I work! :D

-Timbo