Dev Day Episode 66: It's rainy out, and i say star wars yesterday, it was hype.

i made sound effect and i can easily enough get the menu buttons to play them properly, but sound effects for things like footsteps is proving difficulty.

i'll be able to get the timing down once i figure out how to make the sounds play only once, because right now the sound will play every step since it's in the step event.

this needs to change.

tomorrow i'll get on that.

here's the link to the sfx i've made.

it's not much because it takes a bit of messing around to get it right.

i learned i need to plan better and look at the clock because it's after school rn because i didn't make a post ealier.

Dev Day Episode 65: cloudy but not grey, there's also a slight breeze.

i've got lines of dialog now.

i've also made myself a sprite so i can just give a little greeting.

yea.

so anytime a thing is drawn it's drawn on the same depth level as the thing that draws it, so i had my ground tiles pretty far in front of most things.

so it was awkward when renard's speech went behind the ground.

that was fixed quickly by adjusting the tile's depth.

tomorrow i think i'll start working of sound effects, like running and jumping.

maybe a main menu theme will come shortly.

Dev Day Episode 64: it was real foggy earlier but that's been clearing up steadily, other than that it's sort of cloudy, sort of sunny, i think there's still ice on the ground. oh, it's getting foggier, cool.

i've got no dialog of substance but i do have a proof of concept.

you'll notice a couple of things.

there's now a notice for when you stand in front of individual characters, not just their houses.

this notice will tell you when you can interact with them.

interacting with opus here will trigger him to draw this dialog.

it will also make the game go into a psuedo-paused state.

i do that by having a global variable that when marked as true will disable the players functions, which will be useful for dialog sections, depending on how i want to do them.

i remember doing something similar for a game i helped make last year, but i can't quite remember how i did that, so i made this system from scratch.

tomorrow i'll be writing.

Dev Day Episode 63: still cloudy but there's some blue in the sky.

i feel so creatively bankrupt right now.

i can't for the life of me come up with good art for this.

my grappling hook is giving me so many issues too.

i want to make more mechanics right now, maybe that'll help me get into the groove of things.

putting a hold on level 1.

going to make that mana bar, maybe make some magic too.

i also want to make dialog boxes.

...

i'm really feeling the time pressure.

this semester ends soon and after that i'll hardly be able to work on this.

...

i've made the mana bar.

it's pretty much the same thing as the healthbar but with different colours, and some of the variables changed around.

since i don't have any magic abilities, yet, the mana is tied to the grappling hook.

tomorrow i'll be working on dialog.

and i'm learning once again that games take time.

time is something i don't have a lot of.

i need to re-think my plans while i have time so i don't waste it.

i'll finish this semester with a fleshed out hub world.

this hubworld will have a vertical slice of everything i've accomplished.

if i don't get combat working, than the hubworld won't have combat.

if i manage to make sound effect, the hubworld will have sound effects.

Dev Day Episode 62: cloudy and grey, very cold, just a little windy.

this level design stuff is hard, i didn't like the old level so i started over from scratch.

i want a solid level before i make the art assets.

i need assets that complement the level.

my idea here is i'm going to go for like a cityscape building top sort of thing.

i want this level to sort of imply arlette's past as a refugee.

i'm pretty happy with this, so i'll start working on the art assets.

but i am worried it's a bit, short.

...

art is hard, so this will take awhile to get this art, even though the level is small.

it took me so long to be happy with my other tiles.

tomorrow i'll be working on art.

...

design involves a lot of trial and error, that's something i'm finding out.

i'm throwing ideas at a wall finding out what sticks and building off of that.

Dev Day Episode 61: it's cloudy but pretty bright out, there's snow on the ground but not a lot.

putting together the building blocks for level 1.

also slapping some tiles on there so i can see where i'm going.

this is what it looks like.

i've gone through the trouble to leave some highlights.

that first red area will teach jumping.

that height difference is just high enough that it's possible.

to make the next gap you'll need to use the grappling hook.

to get onto those stairs you'll need to use the hook because it's just a little too high.

the next pit won't kill you if you fall down, necessarily but you can get over it by hooking onto the ceiling. the bits highlighted in yellow is where i'll put enemies.

and lastly in the bit i've done there's a tricky precision test for the hook, with a big drop.

...

so one of the design philosophies of metroidvania and other classic games is that they let you see a challenge before you have to face it.

i've taken this philosophy and made it so that at the bottom of the roofed pit there's an enemy that you can see long before you face it.

you'll see the enemy when you make that first jump.

only a glimpse though.

maybe i'll lower that pit so the enemy will be more visible.

tomorrow, more level.

Dev Day Episode 60: pitch black out, it's midnight.

it's the day before, or i guess technically the day i go back to school.

i didn't get as much work done on my game as i thought i would, which is as dissapointing to me as anyone else.

i did do a couple of things however.

i found and fixed a glitch with the particles.

the glitch being that after death, another particle emitter would spawn, and the effect would increase.

it didn't look very good.

i also think justin was having a similar problem with his particles.

this was solved by writing this code into the destroy: event.

///refreshed room cleanup
part_system_clear(part_light_sys);
part_type_destroy(part_light);
part_emitter_destroy(part_light_sys, part_light_emit);
part_system_destroy(part_light_sys);

part_system_clear(part1_sys);
part_type_destroy(part1); 
part_emitter_destroy(part1_sys, part1_emit);
part_system_destroy(part1_sys); 

this clears everything.

i attempted to pass of a prototype to some testers via a burnt disk, however they report that the disk isn't working.

i'm not in immediate contact to them so i don't have specifics.

so i'll send them a link to download the game via dropbox, through my third party contact.

other than that i messed around with the grappling hooks speed settings.

i might have to tinker around with its collision.

this grappling hook is proving to be a real pain.

seriously considering just cutting it out of the game.

but it's a bit late to do that.

...

i also did some research, by that i mean i played a lot of dark souls, and my that i mean i looked at the gameplay and analyzed the level design.

i realize dark souls shares so much in common with a metroidvania game, especially in terms of level design.

one of the most noticeable tricks is that it favors short cuts as opposed to a strictly checkpoint based level design.

i'll want to use this to my advantage as i'm designing future levels.

but as i focus on level 1, i need to think of how the level can teach new players.

level 1 should be linear and teach basic movement, as well as combat, and introduce the theme of the story in about 5 minutes.

and then art assets will be made.

and then enemies will be made.

and then combat will be made.

these three tasks may take 2 weeks at least.

it is my goal to have them done before this semester ends.