[Released] Karpe Diem, a Pokemon slice of life game in GB Studio

Howdy universe, I'm birdup and this the first time I'm ever writing one of these.

Late last year I began reconnecting with programing after more than a decade of absence. I began learning Godot on a whim after purchasing a Humble Bundle of tutorial content and in late December, I released my first fairly serious project; Azumanga Daioh Magical Pop.

After a few more releases across a variety of genres, I found myself looking at other development engines to broaden my horizon. Eventually, I settled on GB Studio in late June and began to explore a concept: What are the other folks in the Pokemon universe up to? Surely, not everyone can be the next Pokemon master at age 10, but they must be doing something. 

With about a month of work I was able to launch Karpe Diem: Pokemon Fishing Contest last week!



Built from the ground up in GB Studio, my goal with this game was to preserve the charm of Pokemon while taking a step back from the trainer centric story and mechanics of the mainline series. Explore the Joisey Region and take part in their famous festival, hosted by the beloved Mayor Slowpoke. All in all, the game takes ~20 minutes to complete and can be played in you browser or brought with you on the go via the ROM download.

For my first project in GB Studio I'm thrilled with the final outcome. The limitations that the Game Boy hardware places on the development process has been a very interesting twist in my learning journey, and I've really enjoyed the process of trying to come up with creative workarounds to still execute on my vision. And despite the relatively limited range of tutorials in comparison to an engine like Godot, I've been very thankful to find some helpful videos from folks like Pixel Pete and Robert Doman to really jumpstart the process.



I'm definitely planning to stick with GB Studio for a bit to continue and explore some of the more advanced elements I eschewed for this first project. It's only been a week and I'm already kicking myself for manually duplicating a ton of code instead of just taking the time to understand features like the scripts the first time through.

Hope that you enjoy Karpe Diem if you give it a shot! Please feel free to leave any feedback or suggestions on the game page.

That about wraps it up, so I'll leave you with a sneak peak at my next GB Studio project which will hopefully available in the next week or two...