Diddi and the Bugs (videogame)
Last updated: October 7th, 2023.
Diddi and the Bugs is the name of the first videogame from the Diddi Games Collection, a collection of games about Diddi.
Product info
| Category | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Diddi and the Bugs |
| Author | Diego Ramirez |
| First release date | 25 November 2021 (first former release); 03 January 2022 (first stable release) |
| Latest stable version | 3.1.1 |
| Download page | “Diddi and the bugs” at itch.io |
Plot
Sourced from the project’s README.
The Earth is under invasion. A fleet of giant bugs, bacteria, and viruses are outside of the planet.
In the meantime, Diddi was developing a secret spacecraft. When his frineds told him of the invasion, he decided to visit the brilliant Dr. Chuck (a scientist, and also an old friend of Diddi). The doctor gave him the L1-F3 experimental serum, that kills anything alive. That should destroy those bugs…
To ensure that those bugs will be destroyed, Diddi modified his spacecraft to convert it into a starfighter that energizes the serum and shoot it. Then, he named the starfighter Willpower. Suddendly, the Willpower goes outside of the planet, to start the fight…
Gameplay
The game starts with Diddi riding his new starfighter, the “Willpower”. The goal is to destroy 200 bugs (which invaded the Earth’s atmosphere). If those bugs are destroyed, the game ends.
As a secondary goal, the users are challenged to get the highest score as possible. To do so, they have to destroy some “space trash” that spawns with the bugs. Also, since the 2.x releases, there’s a giant bug known as “The Monster” (which is not counted with the 200 bugs), that can give an important amount of extra points.
Development story
Early development - Submission to GameOff
Initially, the game started as a project for GameOff 2021.
That’s a nice story to tell.
I have a friend […]. I was chatting with [her], while I was stuck with the GameOff theme (“bug”).
And she came with a fresh idea from a non-exhausted mind: a doctor with a starship that kills “bugs”. At first, I thought it was too bare, but then noticed it was a great idea.
Also, that idea matched with a story I planned in the past (see the 3rth answer). So everything connected, and then I started to develop my game!
~ @DiddiLeija (quoted from a post in DiddiLeija’s Discord Server)
At November 1st, 2021, when the jam started, the design part of the game started. The first idea was to use Pygame, and actually the game started with Pygame stuff. But then, the game switched to Pyxel, that modeled the retro style of the final game.
At November 25, 2021, the first functional shot of the game was ready. A few days later, the first distribution of Diddi and the bugs was ready at itch.io. It didn’t have any tags or anything, it was just a Python file and a resource file (the game was later packaged and distributed for specific environments).
After the jam ended, the game ranked 278th from 526 submissions. Not an extraordinary position, though.
After 2 months of working, coding, rating and fixing, the end of the event has just come. Today, they published the results (see here). I know, my game is not on the first pages (he he)… It ranked 278th. Only 7 people rated. But I don’t feel bad – there were 530 entries on the jam :p
~ @DiddiLeija (see original post)
1.x series
After that, the first “stable” release (1.0.0) was published. It was only an unmodified version of the game, exactly the same than the jam’s version.
Then, Ramirez started to look for inputs, and followed by new contributors, he polished the game and removed some issues in two other minor releases, 1.1.0 and 1.2.0.
2.x series
Later, Ramirez started the 2.x major series. The 2.0.0 release made several changes, and officially deprecated the 1.x series, to start a new series of Diddi and The Bugs.
One of the main changes was the addition of a “messages bar”, a small space below the screen to show notifications. It became the first bridge between the user and Diddi (before this release, he was only mentioned as the spaceship’s pilot). Now the users could receive small messages and alerts from the pilot, but also from “the system” (to notificate higher changes). This update also included improved features, and also some new “easter eggs”, like a hard-to-find creature and secret messages.
Another 2.x release, named 2.0.1, updated dependencies and improved the community stuff.
3.x series
A new series (3.x) added a brand-new look to the game, with some appearance features.
The 3.0.0 release added stars to the game, enforcing the space theme. They have random speed and position, so they provide a more natural aspect. This idea was proposed and developed at Ramirez’s Discord server, before its introduction to the codebase. Another major feature is the main menu, that welcomes the users instead of starting the game directly. The available options are 1) starting the game and 2) a credits sequence. This credits sequence only provides a link to a list of credits, available at GitHub. This feat was also proposed on Discord.
A few months later, bugfix version 3.0.1 made a slight change that finally enabled web support, using Pyxel’s WASM support. The main fix that achieved this goal was found accidentally, during the development of the Abandon the ship! game, and was implemented a few weeks after the end of that development.
In minor releases 3.1.0 and 3.1.1, Ramirez replaced the experimental, nightly WASM online version with a donwloadable, version-controlled HTML alongside the other dists, as a totally-new distribution.
Future
As of October 7th, 2023, the plan is to develop and launch a new major release – version 4.0. In this version, there are some breaking features to be implemented.