Boxwindow is a game about avoiding falling boxes for as long as possible.
It really is that simple! Just use WASD and F. (or Arrow Keys and Return/Enter.)
You can play the game here (no mobile controls yet):
Or, stick around for the development story:
Long ago I watched a lot of Extra Credits. One video that really struck a chord was their Minimum Viable Product video - to distill whatever game you’re making into a prototype with placeholder graphics first thing when heading into any project. Is the game fun without fancy 3D graphics? Without sound? Or… without color?
Already having a project stuck in limbo because of an oversized scope and life getting in the way, I wanted to try making something small enough I could actually complete within a month.
And I did complete it! It was very fun trying to find programming tricks to make my GDevelop event-ing better, such as using only 1x1 sprites and using the width of the health bar sprite as actual health, saving one single variable in the process. That added with the solid core gameplay (to me) like having coyote time (jump in the air) and jump buffer (hold jump key before you land) made it feel like the time was well spent.
After that though, life threw many things at me, so I stepped out of GDevelop for a loooong while (which is why the credits say 2020). Fast forward to today, my friend hinted that my addicted scrolling of videogames on TVTropes was probably a sign that I really really missed making games. So I took the weekend to polish the game until the state you can play it at now, and finally let the project “rest”. There’s still a lot of issues though as you can see on the page…
Overall, I’m glad I took the time to download GDevelop again. It scratched my itch of making games work using nerdy ways, but most importantly gave me energy to do everything else in life. That’s pretty nice. So thank you GDevelop and its many contributors!
Well, that’s it. Thank you for reading, and tell me what you think about the game!
(Especially: Is it fun enough with the current features? Can it be more fun?)
I like this idea of an MVP game, with it’s to focus on gameplay rather than eye/aural candy. This sounds like a great way to create fun little casual games (or minigames) that can be picked up and played a few minutes at a time. Graphics and sound are changeable, but the game mechanics and play usually isn’t.
And sometimes you need a break to energise and refresh your mind, so you can step back in with a clean perspective.
I really like your idea. It is very simple but with a lot of potential, Flappy Bird style. I suggest you advance this idea by adding things. If you manage to improve it in terms of graphics, music and game progress, and find a good niche, it could be a hit.
Thanks! Just got the idea of making color themes.
I’m debating whether to add additional obstacles as time goes on since I originally wanted something simple like Snake - but it can be fun to discover new obstacles. If you have any specific ideas that would be great!
(As for music that will take a while for me to decide)
Boxwindow v2.1 has been released!
It’s quite a small update:
Arrow keys support! Use arrows + Return + R. Now @Gruk and others from Cool Countries ™ can enjoy the game just fine! (Custom controls coming very very later)
Changed grey box’s physics, no more relying on “Separate two objects”.
Score text now uses Bitmap Text. I need to overhaul the menu, so the menu still uses Text xd
@UlisesFreitas Thank you for the GIF! It’s very fun to watch. There’s still many many basic things I want to improve before adding anything beautiful like that though.
I really appreciate all the feedback people have given so far!
…finally, there’s also a “godmode” boolean variable I made to test the new physics. There’s no in game way to activate it though maybe some creative people will know how to use it?
Either way, only this forum knows it exists
Thank you for playing!
aha yep, I’m not entirely sure why that happens. some ideas:
the timer responsible for spawning boxes somehow got frozen
the box physics acting up (it’s a manually controlled PlatformerObject, I’m surprised it even works lol)
the box spawner checking way more than it should whether there’s a box in that area or not
(solution: I’ll make it 2 pixel smaller than the actual box)
Whatever the problem, I’ll use the debugger to check variables at some point.
If you want to look at events though, here they are:
Box falling stuff (it has issues when the player box is being crushed by another box)
maybe some creative people will know how to use it?
