Someone suggested I give Critter Jam a try, so I started kicking around ideas and eventually decided to make a game. Meet “Urban Rascals”!
Everyone loves cats and dogs, but the city’s little “rascals”—rats, foxes, and raccoons—tend to get a bad rep for digging through trash. When monsters invade the city, the humans flee with their pets, leaving these unwanted little “troublemakers” behind.
But the city is their home too, so one young fox decides to fight back and protect it.
You play as this dumpster-dwelling fox, fighting monsters with whatever trash you can find lying around.
Gameplay:
It’s a top-down dungeon crawler set in a city. You pick up trash scattered around the city and throw it at enemies. Each item has a limited number of uses, so once you’ve used it up, you’ll have to scramble to find something else, even in the middle of a fight.
Still got a ton of stuff left to do, especially the art. There’s only about a month left until the Critter Jam deadline, so I’m honestly not sure if I’ll finish in time. But I figured I’d give it a shot!
Of course, here are some game art assets I’ve already created, though they could still use some improvement.
I’d like to start by asking a few questions here in my own thread; if I don’t get a response, I’ll ask at the discussion forum dedicated to the competition
First, for my previous game, I used a MIDI converter for the music—I’m not sure does the use of derivative musical works comply with the competition requirements?
I tried looking for the competition rules, but I don’t seem to see any detailed information—may I miss something?
Second, does anyone have experience creating BGM within MakeCode? I tried it myself, but the result was quite poor, as I don’t have much musical background.I don’t even have any experience creating MIDI music, and trying to compose music using the tools in MakeCode just leaves me completely baffled.
I would be very grateful if someone could help explain these issues!
please don’t use any copyrighted music from anybody else in your game, it makes it much harder for us to feature it because we need to worry about hosting that on the site.
that being said, you can totally use tools outside of makecode to compose your music and then import it using a midi converter tool, or import music that you have permission to use from somebody else.
I would start messing around with richard’s Custom Instruments extension, which also allows you to change the volume of a specific instrument! You should go check out the music I’m creating for my game!
Also, your game looks pretty lit already and I like that the tail and hands are procedurally animated!
If you are looking for help with music, I am totally down to assist!
Haha, please don’t give up because of me! I still have a ton of work left to do, and I’m dealing with college finals at the same time. So there’s a pretty good chance my game won’t be nearly as polished as I’d like, assuming I can even finish it before the deadline!
I really don’t want to discourage anyone. I’m just here to try something new and have fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else makes too!
Thanks for clarifying the copyright rules! That makes perfect sense. I understand why using someone else’s copyrighted music could create problems for the MakeCode team.
I’ll make sure to respect those rules. I’ll try composing something original for this game, Thanks for answering my question!
Thanks for offering! The music in your game actually sounds really good!
I’m not very good at making music myself, but I think I’ll give it another shot first. I’ve been experimenting with a few ideas, though nothing has turned out quite right yet.
If I manage to make something decent, I’ll share it here. And if I end up needing help, I’ll definitely let you know!
Thanks for offering to help with the music! Don’t underestimate yourself! I’ll try making it myself first and share any results here. If I need help, I’ll definitely reach out!
