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Edited Down Gameplay video

One of my peers told me that my video was far too long for submission so I learnt how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to cut out clips to highlight specific sections of the levels, in the end I managed to take it from 10 minutes to 2 minutes 40 seconds

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Gameplay Video

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Daily Goal

For today, I only have a few things that I need to do.

The first is to remove all developer code (print strings) and to build out my game

The next is to record a gameplay video for my project which I will post here

After that I need to complete 2 documents relating to the evaluation to my project

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Daily Recap

So today I added some background images and an actor that roars once you pass a certain point.

I think that these changes were vital to the project as a final bit of polish to it so I'm glad I've gotten these done.

Overall I'm very happy with how today went and am happy that it looks good

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Scary Roar

While I was perusing Pixabay, I found audio for a deep sea monster roaring so I decided to download it so I could use it later in my game.

I have decided to attach it to an actor that when overlapped, roars, I did this because I think it adds to the environment and makes it much better, plus, it scares the player

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Roots

For the first part of the first level, it is set in a mangrove forest, for this I need to have some kind of roots to represent the forest so I thought I'd take inspiration from here to do so.

This is what I've ended up with and I think this will work, however I might have to tweak the dimensions in unreal to make it so that it works well

This is what the final thing looks like and I think that it looks alright, I think that it gives the right amount of atmosphere. It could be better but I don't have the time so this will have to do but overall I'm happy

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Vines

When it came to making my kelp vines for the background, subnautica was an immediate thought for inspiration as it's kelp forests look amazing and I've already used them as inspiration before in this project. Aside from that I also wanted to look at real kelp forest vines as I want them to look somewhat realistic, or as real as you can get with 64 X 64 pixels.

In the end this is what I came out with and I think I've done a good job as they look like believable kelp forests for a 2D pixel art game so now all I need to do is put them in the game

I think that they look really good in game, I tried to add variation with rotations and scale making them thicker and thinner and I think that it payed off.

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Daily Target

My target for today is quite simple, make the 4 remaining background images so that my game looks somewhat finished.

It is vital that I do it today as it is my last day of development and so time is of the essence!

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Audio

Audio is a vital step for my game as it helps it come alive within it's atmosphere so it's really important that I get this done before the end of the project.

To select the audio for my game I will use a combination of the website Pixabay which has a bunch of free audio files which are great when you need audio and fast

These are the audio files I have chosen for my fmp and there will probably be more later on as I've probably forgotten them now so I'll get them in later

This is how I trigger the sounds, by creating them and then playing them, if I only want them to be played once then I put them in a custom event with a do once.

For my coin collectables I had to add 2 blocks of code to 100 actors which was a daunting task but I got it done in the end

For certain sounds, I wanted to randomize them to lessen the sense of repeating sounds so to do this I put them in a sound cue, run them into a randomize node and output that by priming and playing the sound cue

I have done a few other bits that I haven't recorded here and that wraps up all the audio needed for my game, the only thing I need to add from here is a few background imagesd.

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Shipwreck

When it came to thinking of how to design a shipwreck I knew I wanted to make a pirate ship for the purpose of my treasure chest, but I didn't know how to draw one so I looked up images of that to help me

I'm really happy with how this turned out and I think that it looks really good.

Luckily there were no colour issues so I could turn it into a sprite with no problems and place it in the ideal location

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Daily Target

My goal for today is to design a simple shipwreck for the background of my game and to also start adding audio to the game as that will start to show real polish on said game.

I think I will be able to do this today so it's not a huge thing I have to do and besides I don't expect to get all the audio done today

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Background Image 3

The abyssal zone is what I used as inspiration for my third and final image. Seeing as how deep it is, the image should be mainly black, but since the image in unreal is always darker than in photoshop, I think I'll just do a navy blue screen.

The process is once again the same so all I did was add a plane slightly behind the tile map and applied the texture as a material which gets around the whole green and yellow issue

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Background Image 2

These are the images that I have chosen to use as inspiration for my background for level 2, It is more focused on the twilight zone as that is a deeper and darker zone of the ocean so I will use darker shades of blue.

The development is the same as before where I import my design into unreal, change it into a material and apply it to a plane slightly behind the tile map with collisions off.

The only thing I need to do now is to add a second layer to the tile map so I can add in a background to the caves to make them seem more like caves

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Background Image 1

This is my moodboard for my frst background image. These are all imges from the sunlight zone where level one is based so it will be good inspiration for my image

This was my first attempt at making a background image for level 1 except when I imported it inside Unreal, It turned green, I was informed this is because unreal doesn't like certain shades which was apparent as it changes the colours completely

To remedy this, I just made the background blue and got rid of the sunlight in hopes of fixing it, alas it still didn't work so I settled for putting it on a plane behind the level instead of a sprite

It did turn out a little darker than I wanted but you have to make compromises so I am happy with this

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Daily Target

Today my aim is to get the background images for my game done. Realistically I should be able to do this as they will mainly be shades of blue with some having sun's rays poking through the water.

This is my only target because I don't have long to do this so I don't want to be over ambitious with my goals.

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Potential Items

While my project was getting looked at by one of my tutors (specifically Level 2) I was suggested to add some extra tools like flares and such so that when you're exploring you can track where you've been. Originally I dismissed this idea because I liked the idea of the player getting lost, but then I realised how much people hate mazes so I think it would be good as it might help people conquer the maze easier and make the players feel more professional.

This seems like a real idea to bump up my game to the next level as it currently is a bit too similar to my first project in September last year aside from a few mechanic changes. Obviously the two were supposed to be different, one was meant to be flush with mechanics and this one was meant to be more environment based but due to time, they seem much more alike than they're supposed to be

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Humans Effect on the Ocean

Humans obviously have an effect on the ocean, whether it's bad or good. In my game I plan to have a shipwreck to be present at the end of level 3 to act as an artificial coral reefs as most shipwrecks do. this is because I want to focus more on the positive side of the ocean to present something to be saved rather than disregarded because it's too far gone. This reason explains why I haven't added any negative human interference and only put in biological ocean threats like sea urchins in the coral reef as they work well as enemies that make sense.