Blood Pressure

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. You can find the devlogs on the game's store page just under the download section, though they're mostly just patch notes with some design discussion.

MonoGame is great in terms of the amount of freedom it gives you to make what you want from scratch, but that also means you have to deal with some annoying technical stuff most engines would take care of for you. The default audio API in particular isn't very good, so it's recommended that you use some type of audio middleware.

If you need help getting started, I used GameFromScratch's tutorial series on YouTube. There's also plenty of documentation of the MonoGame website.

Sorry for the late response!

I made the engine myself using the MonoGame framework: https://www.monogame.net/

I find that having a custom engine gives me a greater degree of control, and I don't have to hunt down documentation when something goes wrong since it's all my own code. However, it can be pretty difficult building everything from scratch, so it isn't something I'd recommend for everyone.

Sure thing! Here's how it works:

• The environment is stored as a 2D array of pixel object, which each stores its current color (black pixels are just null, with no pixel object).
• When a blood drop hits a wall or passes over a pixel object in the background, the addColor(Color c) function is called on the pixel at that (x, y) coordinate.
• If the pixel's current color is not c, then its color gets changed to c, thus coloring it in.
• If the pixel's current color is already c, then addColor(Color c) gets called on all adjacent pixels, thus spreading the color.
• (Make sure to use a set of pixels to keep track of the ones you've already visited so you don't visit the same pixels multiple times).
• (You may also want to add a range to the maximum spread distance, or prevent color from spreading upwards depending on your needs).

That's the basic version of how it works. It gets more complicated if you want to add in color mixing like I have in Blood Pressure, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out. I should also mention that this system works well in Blood Pressure because of the simple, monochrome artstyle with a lot of negative space. IDK how well it would work with other artstyles, but feel free to experiment.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Sorry about the difficulty; balance is something I'm still tweaking.

If you could tell me what you got stuck on and what was giving you the most difficulty, that would help me balance the game.

Thanks again for playing!

Thanks for the bug report! After reading your comment, I was finally able to fix the bug! As it turns out, it was being caused by the menu explosion effect when starting the game. If you assign jump to a button with lower case letters like "Space", the explosion effect isn't programmed to handle it. A simple one line fix. The fixed version will up shortly.

Also, thanks for suggesting an  easy mode. That's definitely something I'll be looking at for the full version.

Thanks for your help!

Where did you put the game folder? If it's supposed to save the game to the game folder itself, it seems like it could be a permissions issue

Sorry to hear that. I haven't run into this issue myself, so I don't 100% know what's causing it. My guess is that an error is occurring when the game attempts to save, since hitting new game creates a new save file.

Try playing the new version I just uploaded. If I'm right, it should no longer crash, though saving won't work.

Hey, I just solved the problem! Turns out it specifically happens when setting the jump input to a key which contains lowercase letters, like "Space", since the explosion effect on the main menu wasn't programmed to handle lowercase. The new version I just uploaded should fix this issue.

Sorry to hear that :(

If you tell me where you were in the game, I can recreate your save and send it to you.

Sure thing! Here's how it works:

• The environment is stored as a 2D array of pixel object, which each stores its current color (black pixels are just null, with no pixel object).
• When a blood drop hits a wall or passes over a pixel object in the background, the addColor(Color c) function is called on the pixel at that (x, y) coordinate.
• If the pixel's current color is not c, then its color gets changed to c, thus coloring it in.
• If the pixel's current color is already c, then addColor(Color c) gets called on all adjacent pixels, thus spreading the color.
• (Make sure to use a set of pixels to keep track of the ones you've already visited so you don't visit the same pixels multiple times).
• (You may also want to add a range to the maximum spread distance, or prevent color from spreading upwards depending on your needs).

That's the basic version of how it works. It gets more complicated if you want to add in color mixing like I have in Blood Pressure, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out. I should also mention that this system works well in Blood Pressure because of the simple, monochrome artstyle with a lot of negative space. IDK how well it would work with other artstyles, but feel free to experiment.

Mac and Linux builds are definitely something I want to do for the full release! Unfortunately, I'm a solo dev without access to Mac or Linux machines to build/test on, so they will have to wait for now. I'll let you know if/when builds are available for those systems.

Thanks for the question! The game is made with MonoGame. It's not an engine, but rather a framework which handles assets, inputs, etc. The rest is really just written by me from the ground up. I like it because it gives me a lot of freedom with how I program the game, although it does mean I have to program most of it from scratch.