Announcing The Buzzing Crusade for Android
For the past few months, I’ve been devoting a portion of my time to developing Seeds of Tomorrow, a role-playing game set in a future where the environmental crisis has drastically reshaped the world. This project marks my first foray into game development, and I soon realized that it would be a lengthy endeavor.
During the year-end holidays, I took the opportunity to clear my mind and kick off 2024 with a small, technically engaging side project I’ve named The Buzzing Crusade.
The Buzzing Crusade is a compact mobile arcade game made with Godot where players assist a bold young bee on an unexpected journey of discovery, navigating through diverse environments and encountering various insects. The narrative underscores the critical role of these pollinating bees in nature, the threats they face, and the importance of their conservation.
The game mechanics draw inspiration from several arcade classics, including Space Invaders. Players must steer the bee, helping it dodge obstacles in a consistently scrolling environment. The bee needs to sustain its stamina by collecting nectar from flowers and avoid letting it drop to zero. Additionally, the bee will face various hazards that it must either dodge or confront, such as hostile terrains, predatory birds, or hornets. As with Seeds of Tomorrow, I handcrafted all the game elements, except for a few menu components.
After a focused three weeks of development, The Buzzing Crusade is nearing completion and has entered the testing phase. All game mechanics are in place, and a first set of levels is ready to play.
Working on The Buzzing Crusade has been particularly enlightening. This compact project allowed me to quickly and practically tackle numerous challenges I hadn’t yet anticipated for Seeds of Tomorrow. I’ve gleaned substantial insights into managing game loops and progression, as well as handling sound, menus, settings, and save features. In the coming days, I plan to publish an article detailing as comprehensively as possible the mechanics involved in creating this small arcade game.
The release on the Play Store is scheduled for around February 2024, based on the current feedback from the testing phase, and additional levels will be added regularly post-launch.
