bigandlittlegame - Tumblr blog

[bigandlittlegame]

Working on that demo level, lighting fx, new enemy (it's a floater), and vibes.

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Playing with some lighting and room building.

[bigandlittlegame]

Added some more advanced AI for finding cover and showing all that goes into that. Had to add a way to update the navigation map for removed objects as I want to have destructible objects. This is paving the way for a bit more dynamic gameplay.

Next up, working on damage dealing, some kind of "hit" visual (like a simple "flash" when hit) and maybe like a pulsing color or something illustrating the damage taken (faster pulsing, more damage?) not sure yet...and some initial balancing.

States like when health reaches X, enemy takes cover.

Some triggers like floor switches to open doors.

Two distinct enemies, one aggressive close range attacker, one ranged sniper.

Some "power ups" maybe something as simple as ammo for a second weapon or special power.

Then I can tie it all together with a simple three room level.

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This week is all about ai:

Patrol ai

Detection ai

Targeting ai

Attack ai

Follow ai

And also some basic level vibes

[bigandlittlegame]

An update after a lonnnng break.

Had some real world stuff come up. Work stuff. House stuff. Addicted to Hell Let Loose for a month stuff. I'm back working on things and made some good progress this week. Hope to have the basic room done next week.

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Making progress on dipping my toes into 3D, been playing the game The Ascent and was inspired to do a similar movement style for the smaller nimble soldier. Recorded this video for Andrii the animator.

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Going into a code hole

Welp, it's that time in a project where you find all the bubble gum and string holding stuff together and have to pause to reorganize. I'm going into a code hole to refactor.

We're going to migrate from 2D to 3D. Makes more sense given the scope of what we're trying to do and our resources.

Right now we're making 3D models and then rendering a series of PNGs for every animation and then for eight directions of that animation. Those are converted into sprite sheets and the frames are mapped to animations in Godot. It is doable but it is time consuming.

Now throw in equippable visible weapons, equipment, etc and multiply those combos by the animations and directions. Yikes.

Big changes I want to make

Convert to WASD / controller input vs. click-to-move for player controls. Something like the game Hades would be similar to the idea here in terms of WASD to move, mouse click to target. I want this to be more of an "arcade" tactical game, where it feels more like a toy and less like a turn based tactical PC game. I could see this being a good console game years from now if it were successful enough to port to Switch.

Really define the play style and loop. It is not a button masher, the focus is going to be on strategic gameplay and positioning in a realtime environment.

Instead of assigning a destination for the large robot, I want to think of it more as having a throttle control you ramp up and down, so you have to switch back and forth between the characters. The whole point is you are controlling the big robot as the little player. So I want to make it feel more like you are actually using a controller, and not just clicking to set a waypoint.

I'd like to leave the door open here for two player silmultaneous play.

Will post some updates as things progress but not expecting anything much for a couple weeks.

[bigandlittlegame]

Well...I got some progress done on the combat but then had to work on a real life project: a retaining wall around our front yard. $800, 32 hours, 5 trips to Menards in the truck, 6,000 lbs of materials later, I am back to working on the game. So this week I should have some combat to show. Today is a day of rest because it has been a couple days of working in direct sunlight with hot temps digging trenches, smashing gravel and stacking large rocks and my swollen sausage fingers need a rest.

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Experimenting with the UI by making a console that shows combat feedback. One is framed with an old computer monitor graphic and the other is unframed Not sure the direction I want whether it's clean and funcitonal or more stylized...

For this week, I already have the basic combat logic under the hood, and I have the attack states and stuff programmed, so what I need to do this week is:

Program the inventory

Make icons for weapons and attacks

Program these to the UI including the radial menu

Turn the attack states back on for everyone

Test / debug

[bigandlittlegame]

End of week update:

Two independent player characters on the screen

Double click profile to snap camera to player

Next week:

COMBAT

[bigandlittlegame]

Trying out vids with subtitles cause why not, it's nice.

Midweek got-distracted-with-more-inputs-update:

Turning w/out walking

Robot size tweaks

Camera controls *yay*

Pop-up radial menu

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Concept art for some environment objects like walls, gates, floor tiles, columns.

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This week, instead of a video, I'm putting up a screenshot because not all that much has changed since the end of last week. I've been working on a basic UI for the game with selectable character portraits with buttons for selecting weapons (lower left corner of the screenshot).

Main things I want to complete:

Bug fix some input issues

Get selectable attacks working

Get very basic combat functional (enemies can harm player, player can harm enemies)

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Updates to enemy ai: - Find and maintain cover behind nearest object - Maintain distance from target

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Update: - Basic enemy follow, navigate ai - Enemy vision cone - Objects break line of sight within vision cone

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Initial concepts for the two main characters by artist Arnolds Soms. Going for a more fun / light hearted design vs. serious / realistic. I wanted a face on the red robot that we could use to make it more expressive during gameplay. The backpack may display an icon or effiect for a power up that is attached to the player. These are likely to be reworked a lot but for now I'm pretty happy with it as a starting point and Andrii will be moving onto modeling them in the next week or so.

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I started the week out doing some "research" playing Hades by Super Giant Games...37 hours later, I got back into coding...

Week updates include experimenting with:

Parallax backgrounds

Shadows

Navigation using a server / map vs. a pure physics collision process