Kid Bubblegum Devlog #1

You wanted it, you got it: By popular demand I’ll chronicle my Quest for Next Fest! Don’t know what that is? Then maybe read this, but the short version is: I’m making a new game, and I want to have a demo ready by the end of June, so that I can submit it to the next Steam Next Fest. It’s just something I wanna do.

And in case you missed it: That new game is Kid Bubblegum!

Okay, so let’s start by quickly introducing the game. To summarize the story: Aliens invade, and Kid Bubblegum is too cool to let that slide. So he grabs his Bubblegum Gun to kick ass and shoot bubblegum.

That’s all you need to know, really.

And before I bore you with the gameplay details or clutter this page with gifs amounting to several megabytes, here’s a quick playthrough of the first prototype stage!

As you can see, the core gameplay revolves around the Bubblegum Gun. First of all, you can use it to defeat enemies, Bubble Bobble style. Capture them in a bubble, then either jump onto them to defeat them, or kick them into a wall (or other enemies!). But the gun is also a crucial part of navigation. The most basic thing you can do with it is reach higher ledges, and if you press jump the moment you hit a bubble, you’ll also jump higher. But you can also use bubbles to cross large gaps by creating a bridge, either with a single bubble or by playing billiards to create a chain.

I’ve fiddled a lot with the prototype to narrow down a moveset that allows for flexible movement on all axes without getting convoluted. I think I got it down now, but we’ll see. What do you think?

Armed with these techniques, Kid Bubblegum will fight his way through the city streets, sewers and a casino, before finally taking the fight to the aliens' spaceship. These are the four main worlds I’ve currently got planned for the game. I’ve tried to deviate a bit from the usual platformer tropes to make the game stand out a bit, especially after Chibi Ninja Shino-kun. And yes, the casino stage is inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog. Did you even need to ask?

Other inspirations for the game were Bubble Bobble and Kid Chameleon, which is most obvious in the name of the game and Kid’s design.

Progress

I took my time with the prototype phase to figure out what worked and what didn’t, and now it’s time to start building content. I’ve already got a lot of Kid’s animations done, along with the basics of the first world, the city. I will be adding more details to both later on, but for now it’s important to get something together that looks “good enough”. Remember, I want to have a (hopefully impressive) demo ready by the end of June.

Next week I’ll build some actual levels, code a new enemy type and will generally add some polish to the game, such as “level start” and “level end” sequences.

If you want to get notified about new developments in my Quest for Next Fest, sign up for my mailing list below and/or follow me on Twitter and Mastodon. I’ve also got a shiny new RSS feed you can subscribe to, if that’s more your thing. And finally, Kid Bubblegum will have a Steam page as soon as Valve approves it, so that I can start farming those precious, precious wishlists!

See you next post, and be excellent to each other!