#gamedev indiedev gdevelop

[alex-game-design]

Asteroids Devlog

For the tank's movement, I made it rotate towards the mouse position and added a force at the faced angle, so that the tank would move towards the mouse. I had to rotate the sprite to face right as that is registered as the front.

I created a point on the sprite where the missiles would spawn. They would spawn at the same angle the tank was facing and a force would move them permanently in that direction. When the missile came in contact with the tree, I deleted both objects, spawned a patch of virus and played an explosion animation and sound.

I came into an issue where loading the shop scene and then returning to the game level would reset lives, bucks, and infection to their base values. This was easily fixed by removing the 'set variable to' actions at the beginning of the level scene and instead resetting them during the game over scene. This did not impact the first instance of gameplay when booting up the game, as I had already set the default values in the variable editor.

The infection actions that I have programmed seem to exponentially subtract lives instead of slowly depleting them. I may have to scrap the mechanic of having to buy an antidote and instead have the infection stop after a certain amount of time. I may also instead change what the infection does and have it make players unable to buy more lives until they cure themselves. This option seems both the easiest and the one that makes sense for the idea of the game.

[ogrekiddo]

throwback lord of cheeseburgers stuff, really greasy stuff 🍔🍔🍔

[asherj44]

Playtesting party notes

Today was the playtesting party which resulted in some interesting and valuable feedback about our game, Arctica. Some notes from today include:

Testers quickly figured out the health-bar nature of the thermometer in the corner of the screen, and easily understood that it related to how long they'd been away from a campfire for

The controls were easy enough to understand, although the dash key may need to be changed from shift for ergonomic purposes

Testers enjoyed the sprawling nature of the world, and how they could choose where they wanted to explore (within reason)

The climb mechanic was usable but could be improved

The environment and character were pretty and well designed, but could have their visibility improved by increasing the lightness of the spike colour

In line with these results, we determined the most important fixes to add in future versions of the game would be:

Brightening the spikes so players can identify them visually more easily

Refining the climb mechanic to make it more enjoyable to use, and more functional to explore with

Changing the dash key to something pressable with the right hand, such as the enter key or the right shift key

Overall, it was good to see peoples initial reactions to Arctica, and it definitely helped us identify issues we wouldn't have noticed otherwise, such as the spike visibility and dash key annoyance.

[kittycreampuffsketbr]

Sheris Dungeon is a Japanese (Brazilian gamedev that live in Japan) tower defense game with charming pixelart graphics where we control a cat who got into debt and now needs to kill monsters to pay his liquor.

👇 Play Here 👇

[the-nifty-shape-killer-blog]

le demo is near

[dontdiegame]

Early gameplay of the first level.

[gamedevelopers-blog]

Gdevelop FREE VISUAL Game Engine: MELEE COMBAT SYSTEM (PART II)

[arscreativa]

The suicidal bomber sectarian in action!

[visual-shock-games]

Kira Kira Kirou! Electro Doll Kiraya is a retro-style 2D platformer with action elements for PC inspired by many beloved games from the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive era such Sonic the Hedgehog, Rocket Knight Adventures, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure and The Revenge of Shinobi!

After accidentally getting free will from a failed experiment done by her evil creator, Dr.Ningyo, the humanoid Mekarette robot Kiraya runs away to explore the world, but her obsessive "mother" isn't going to let her best and most beloved invention go away that easily! Where Kiraya is, Ningyo and her Mekarette army also are, trying to catch her and causing chaos!

You can watch a video of the Alpha Version (1.0.) on Youtube. The game is being made with Gdevelop and is still in an extremely early stage of development, but progress is being made!

[ogrekiddo]

so hyped to work on something simpler, can't wait to show off the progress 😁

[asherj44]

Cashteroids Devlog 2

Worked briefly on Cashteroids today, attempted to add a dynamic collision system for the asteroids where they bounce off each other to add an interesting level of complexity to the game. This attempt wasn't super successful, as without using a "trigger once" condition the asteroids gain far too much speed upon colliding with each other, while with the condition implemented they don't gain any speed at all from collision

This will be an interesting problem to work on in the future, but for now I'm okay leaving it as it is until some other more important mechanics are functional.

[asherj44]

Ice 'em Devlog 2

The next step of developing Ice 'em was to make sure my newly added sprites, the woodchipper, tree, and pit, function in the same way as the template cars they replaced. This involved setting them to spawn at a set y and random x coordinate (within certain bounds) when a timer reached a certain time, with different frequencies. The difference in spawn timings ensures different gameplay each time, keeping the experience fresh and exciting.

I also added a basic UI at the top of the screen, featuring a distance tracker and an attack bar that keeps track of how long the player must wait until they can attack again. This was a simple process, and just involved modifying the background to include an area for the UI elements and adding text widgets to the appropriate areas. Next step is to add a health tracker, which decreases when the player collides with an obstacle, and increases if they manage to successfully attack another player.

[asherj44]

BlunderBus Post-Mortem

After conducting playtesting for BlunderBus, the general feedback I received was:

The theming and artstyle were fun and unique as far as the playtesting genre goes

The time element added a frantic and exciting element to the gameplay

The blunder system was a little unfair, 2 seconds was too big of a penalty for how easy mistakes were to make and for how low the time limits were

After receiving this feedback, the main things I would iterate on for future versions would be to decrease the time penalty of blunders to either 1 second or half a second to make penalties less punishing and demoralising, as well as making blunders marginally easier to avoid.

Another valuable addition could be a more dynamic layered background to create a parallax effect, which would allow the player to feel like they were making progress without requiring a full size scrolling background, saving computer processing time as well as saving time on art development

Overall I'm quite happy with my progress on BlunderBus, there's still plenty of improvements to be made but the systems and art that is in place seemed to be well received.

[asherj44]

Ice 'em Introduction and Devlog 1

Introducing Ice 'em, a game that finally lets you live out the fantasy of being an inner-city nobody who desperately needs to make it to an important job interview on time. Sounds simple enough. Problem is, the road to your interview has frozen over. Nothing your trusty pair of skates can't solve though. Keep an eye out though, you're not the only one who really really needs this job, and the other applicants are willing to do anything to take you out of the running (or skating for that matter). Anything...

Ice 'em is based off the racer game tutorial we completed in workshop 6, which features a car driving along a road, dodging other cars and increasing the player's score in accordance with this. Ice 'em features a skater instead of the car, with the car obstacles replaced by a tree, a pit, and a woodchipper. Ice 'em will also feature enemy skaters, who appear throughout your commute and try to sabotage you so they can make it to the interview instead.

So far, I have implemented the basic mechanics of the game, along with new, hand drawn assets to replace the supplied car materials. These new assets included a small skater character, a tree, a woodchipper, and a pit

Next steps are going to be updating the game's logic to ensure these new objects are treated correctly and beginning work on the rival skaters

[asherj44]

Workshop 9 - The prototyping process

Throughout the development of Arctica, we have slowly added new features, bringing the game towards our desired MVP for the playtesting party next week. Some of the most important features we've added and worked on over the last few versions include:

Double-jump, dash and climb upgrades

Bomb mechanic, that allows players to use bomb pickups to blow through certain damaged wall sections

Tile collision for the top, bottom, and sides of the game environments

One way platforms and frictionless ice surfaces

Our current version, referred to as Version 0.4, is still missing sound and a respawning mechanic, and the levels are still being worked on. We're optimistic we'll have a reasonable MVP by the playtesting party, although certain features are less possible than others, such as the dynamic music system we hope to have.

[asherj44]

Workshop 8 - Team Project Planning

This workshop focused on expanding on our plans for our game, through the means of part A of Assessment Task 3. This assignment involved creating an elevator pitch for our game, Arctica, as well as outlining what a minimum viable product would look like for our prototype. Some of the key elements we identified for our game to be deemed playable include:

2 different environment types, a rocky cave and an icy cave

A heat mechanic, that decreases steadily while the player is not near a campfire

Powerups, including a climbing ability, a dashing ability, and the ability to double-jump

The following paragraph is the elevator pitch we ended up coming up with for Arctica.

Arctica is a side-scrolling metroidvania-inspired platformer where the player must traverse through a treacherous frozen mountain to reunite with their family. The player must explore various environments to unlock new and exciting abilities, all while navigating the new and curious hazards and challenges they find along the way. 

Gameplay will feature the player learning to use their abilities to explore the world and unlock paths to different areas, and maybe find a secret or two along the way. Certain areas will require specific abilities to access in true metroidvania style, incentivizing the player to explore and backtrack through the caves and mountains they find themselves trapped in. 

At the beginning of the game, the player’s abilities will be heavily limited, gradually introducing them to the mechanics over time to ensure they understand the potential of each one and don’t get overwhelmed by too much information.