Hey everyone! I'm super excited to introduce you to my first-ever game jam entry – "Obo's Run"! It's a fast-paced endless runner where the brave warrior Obo dashes through Hell, battling demons and dodging deadly traps.

I'd never participated in a game jam before, so this was a completely new and incredibly interesting experience for me. The jam's theme is "time is running out". But I'm not a big fan of time-based games; I prefer to set my own game's pace and dislike restrictions. So, I decided not to take time away from the player, but rather give it to them. That's why my game has a pretty intense rhythm to it, creating the impression that you're always rushing, but without actually having a timer counting down. Instead, you can compete against yourself or others by checking your scores on the leaderboard after each run. And that's how Obo – the running warrior who fears no time – was born!

This isn't just my first game jam game, it's also my first game for the web. I've been working with Godot for a while, but I'd never exported or adapted my projects for the web platform. I was a little anxious and curious about the game's size and resource usage, wanting to achieve a good result despite the limited information available online about web optimization in Godot. At one point, video memory usage was hitting 1.5 GB, which had me seriously worried! But now, the final game's resource package is only 18 MB, and it uses a maximum of 320 MB of memory, according to the Godot debugger. I didn't use a manually compiled Godot build with unnecessary features stripped out because I decided not to risk it within the tight jam timeframe. As a result, my game archive is a respectable 27 MB (mostly due to the uncompressed standard wasm file, which is a hefty 43 MB).

In this project I focused on visual and sound harmony. The assets from Craftpix look great together, so I added free music and event sounds. With this in place I concentrated on gameplay. I tried to make it challenging, but intuitive. Some aspects you'll have to figure out as you play – for example, realizing that the signs don't affect the player; they're just there to add variety. And that you can't kill the peasants, even if you have no idea why they're in Hell. The basic enemies (demons, spikes, and rocks) only require your attention and reaction speed. The archers, on the other hand, takes some getting used to; you need to be able to dodge their arrows and take them down before they give you a kick, stowing away their bow. I think I managed to pull it off!

In conclusion, I encourage you to play "Obo's Run" and leave your feedback! I’m very curious to hear what you think. Thanks for reading!