Some thoughts...

Learnings…

So this project was my first deep dive into a Bitsy-esque game engine. In this case, I used Mosi: https://zenzoa.itch.io/mosi. I made that decision because it’s mobile friendly and offers a music composition tool. Mosi really lends itself to working on a small screen. I would say that working on mobile actually made it way easier to navigate around the engine and to focus on what I was doing. I’ve found the horizontally arranged blocks of Bitsy a bit difficult to navigate around, and I found editing the sprites using my finger to be a real treat, rather than using a mouse.

I did notice though that I got bogged down in writing the game mechanics. This was problematic for two reasons: 1. I was replicating basic functionality of Mosi using variables and if statements, rather than taking advantage of rooms and 2. Text editing on mobile is a major pain in the ass. I attribute most of this issue to not fulling knowing how the engine worked. One thing that is helpful here was the realization that if I’m spending a ton of time on mechanics rather than art or story it’s an indication that I’m over complicating things and should scale back. It’s also an indication that I’m either replicating something the engine can already do, or that I’m working against some limitations of the engine that I should rather embrace.

The additional capabilities of Mosi make it really usable, and frankly impressive. I love Bitsy, and though I have yet to make a full (by my standards) game in it, I find it’s limitations more frustrating than liberating. Mosi’s extra color palettes, music editor, extra animation frames and ability to switch avatar sprites give it just the additional functionality that I appreciate.

I’ll probably use Mosi more than Bitsy, but I do want to make my next game in Bitsy.