Bitsy Microjam

For this tiny game jam, we will use a “tiny” game engine … Bitsy

This engine was made by Adam Le Doux who writes:

hi! bitsy is a little editor for little games or worlds. the goal is to make it easy to make games where you can walk around and talk to people and be somewhere.

What Lies Underneath - Andrea Bly

Schedule

We “Gotta Go Fast”™ to give enough time to work on things in class and present at the end. So let’s take a look at the schedule:

Theme

The theme for the jam is combinations

Parsley Bonsoir

Generate your bitsy game ideas with an open prompt that allows you to create new story combinations between different things.

Here’s the prompt we’ll use:

a (noun) is wandering in (a place). upon arriving at / encountering (a specific location / object / person in the place), a story about (a topic) unfolds.

We’ll return to this in a moment. But first how do you do things in bitsy?

Bitsy

Get to the engine here: https://make.bitsy.org/

We’ll take a stroll through the engine using this bitsy pdf handout

Look at what others have made: https://itch.io/games/tag-bitsy

If you want to look at even more tutorials / info / hacks/ etc…

• Another tutorial (also in Chinese and Japanese):
• bitsy handout (lots of links to other things): https://rahji.github.io/bitsy-handout/web/
• bitsy tools map (also lots of links): https://haraiva.neocities.org/bitsytools#1,4

Brainstorming

You’ve gotten a quick taste of the engine, so let’s come up with some ideas!

1. Grab a paper
2. Write a version of this sentence with the parenthesis filled in with your own ideas:

   a (noun) is wandering in (a place). upon (arriving at / encountering) (a specific location / object / person in the place), a story about (a topic) unfolds.

3. When you’re done. Put your paper on the designated idea table.

Voting

Each person gets Three votes

Read through the ideas. Draw a star ✰ on your favorite ones.

We’ll take the top 4-5 ideas and write them on the board!

Groups

• Three people max
• Workshop the idea, make a sketch, storyboard, plan what you’ll make (remember that your game can be small)
• Divide up the work if needed. (writing, drawing, sounds, bitsy assembly)

flirting - josie brechner

Notes on sharing between Bitsy

Behind the scenes, bitsy is just storing everything as text.

Take a look at the “Game Data” tool. If you scroll around (or search for names), you’ll be able to find the data connected with your sprite / room / color palette

You can copy and paste things from one game data file to another.

If you’ve decided to use any hacks or plugins this might be a bit more tricky.

Exporting and sharing the game

From the “Download” tool you can export your game as an HTML file. You can embed it using an iframe:

<iframe src="path/to/my-fancy-bitsy.html"></iframe>

You can also upload it directly to itch.io and make a project page!

endless scroll - cecile richard