Burd

Made in 2012 (I think), burd was an experiment with visuals and controls made in Gamemaker. I wanted to create a satisfying representation of flight. I'm not mainly a programmer, and (specifically from a coding standpoint) this is probably the most complex and nicest thing that I've ever made.

Blue Peaches

Collecting all the Blue Peaches doesn't cause anything to happen!!! They are just to mildly encourage exploration.

Explanation of the physics/controls:

Burd flies essentially by jumping over and over, but the acceleration pattern encourages the player to take long, full wing-flaps rather than flapping very quickly. Moving left and right in the air causes the player to glide and fall slower. Diving causes the player to fall more quickly.

Art Notes:

I had a good time with the painting here. I noticed how well it worked to just mash loosely painted stuff together, and this has informed the art in Even the Ocean. I think there's only 1 cliff sprite in Burd that I just placed all over to create all the ground.

I'm pretty proud of Burd itself, which was just a hand drawn animation and features a dynamic shadow so it looks different depending on where you are relative to the sun. There's a base layer then a shadow layer masked by the base layer, then the outlines. I think.

Sound:

There's no music... try playing it with your fave relaxing music in the background?? Heh. I made the peach SFX in SFXr.