Boiler Boi Released!

With Boiler Boi being nearly complete aside from random bugs, and the possibility of more levels, there was plenty to learn from our first project. What was learned can be broken down into 3 main categories.

1.  Sacrificing some visual details can increase playability. The boiler room originally had more objects on the ground like boxes, garbage cans, and other miscellaneous items. While this might make the level make more sense in the real world, actually running around and colliding with everything makes the game less fun to play and even annoying at times.
2. Designing code and assets to be scalable may take longer at first, but more than worth it in the end. You would not believe how much of a mess this project is in Godot. Instead of assets being made independently, then added to the level, they are made within the level and referenced all over the place. Additionally, the player script connects to almost every asset in the boiler room scene which just creates a mess. For example, the game over screen is referenced in the player script with a relative path, meaning if you move anything within the game over screen, you have to change the player script's code.
3. Creating an reward helps with replayability. Our initial submission to the game jam this game was for had a high score saved between runs. This was satisfying and made it slightly replayable, but could be much better. With the release of Boiler Boi comes new medals, that are unlocked after lasting a certain amount of time. There are four medals currently in the game: Bronze 100 seconds, Silver 170 seconds, Gold 235 seconds, and Author being 297.24 seconds (our fastest time). The addition of these medals gives the player a goal to reach for, instead of just beating their own time, they can try to get a Gold medal or even beat the Author medal.

In conclusion, we are very proud to release Boiler Boi as our first game. From the cute, but also dirty artstyle, to the fast paced, intense gameplay, we hope you enjoy Boiler Boi as much as we do.