#gamedevlog

[nohumanza]

Rust & Decay Devlog 001

I've started a project with some people to make a survival horror schmup. It's inspired by my love of horror games but also a recent game called Fear & Hunger.

I started out just figuring out how @gamemakerstoolkit worked again first by messing around building simple schmup mechanics.

Once I had that figured out I roped @skarikafterdark into helping me start really chopping into the work I wanted to do while also working on developing the art style I wanted to go with.

My own style while taking cues from Fear And Hunger proved to be a winner. So I started really pushing into the vibes I wanted. So far we've really made progress on making the project feel tangible.

The spouse is currently working on getting hex grid type map working. They walked me through how to set up a hex in game maker over the course of a day.

So for now we are still working on the basic game loop but I'm really happy so far with the progress! I'll be updating tumblr more as we progress.

[nohumanza]

[blqgumi]

Small update: I have been working on an itch.io page layout recently. It’s been difficult and I’m a bit stressed as we are in the second month and I feel behind. Although I’m not, the stress is affecting me nonetheless. I decided last month I would create a job posting for a UI artist. I will have one up tomorrow. I’m trying to figure out what to say and make it clear.

I also have a synopsis written for my game I’d like to share:

The Seashell Whispers Our Name

Myra is a burgeoning magical consultant with a family background in powerful magic. She gets a request from a friend and fellow magician enthusiast Amadeo, who has stumbled upon a mysterious enchanted bracelet that has been traced back to Myra’s hometown. After years of being away, Myra has returned home and is confronted by an old flame, a dead body and an annual festival that’s reopening old family wounds.

[zeurille]

[Coding Diaries] Using Nodes to Apply Jump Impulse

With the recent runtime fee Unity has imposed on their new pricing scheme, a lot of independent and professional developers are jumping ship due to future issues they foresee regarding the market of their games. 

After much deliberation and self-debating, as well as looking up other devs' opinions on the matter, I decided to switch to Unreal to develop my first game for my portfolio.

I thought the transition would essentially mean starting from scratch, thus my hesitation, but I found myself becoming familiar with concepts easier than expected due to my previous learning experiences in Unity. I already knew terms like components, nodes, and object-oriented programming. This helped me focus more on how Unreal's logic behaved when it came to making things move and operate in the gamespace.

My experiences from other disciplines helped shape my workflow in Unreal as well: especially the concept of non-linear editing and establishing variables, so the behavior still works even when certain values change. 

Case in point: making the cube, in the image above, jump. A Udemy course tasked me with making it happen through Blueprint, a built-in node system in Unreal. It taught me the basics of Events, getting components, the different switches, and adding values.

Using these basic concepts and a little Googling, this was the node system I established for the cube jump, using the Impulse node to operate it.

There is truth in the benefits of learning holistically, as there are concepts that will carry over to different disciplines and will help ease your brain towards taking in the new information, making the learning process more streamlined. Here's to taking further steps into making my own game!

UPDATE:

https://imgur.com/a/BRhuiRJ

The behavior of the Jump Impulse on each cube is different because of the Blueprint composition of each one. The one on the left has extra nodes that transform the mass value to a vector value, then extract the z, and finally apply that z value into the Input. This makes the cube jump a lot more and launches it into the air.

The one on the right has less nodes, only activating the Velocity Change on the Impulse node and entering a value to the z axis. This results in smaller, “more realistic” jumps. Right now I still don't know why this is the case, when they are basically the same value with extra steps.The only big change I'm seeing that could affect these behaviors is the node that translates the mass into a vector. Because even when the velocity change is off, the cube on the right jumps in the same manner.

~~~Okay let me try to break this down... The tutorial said that the Impulse has its own equation of Mass * Velocity Change, but even with the Vel Change unchecked and the numbers manually typed into the Z axis of the Impulse data pin, it was still different from the left cube. So something must have changed in the data of the various nodes I used on the left.

Even if I never find the answer, I guess this has been a hard lesson to always look for optimized, shorter ways to achieve what you want in the game. Also, a lesson to make the game lighter. Hooboy!

[foolsandkings]

04/12/2022 - Basic Quest System, Start on Map

This week was spent fixing a couple minor bugs in what I had built so far, and creating a bunch of new art assets. Namely, I am taking the advise of Pixel Architect on youTube and approaching the map from a more painterly perspective.

I'm drawing a whole scene at once to make sure there's enough interest in each scene. This is taking super long, but I think the results will be much better than the asset mashing I started with. Problem is that I haven't planned out the whole map yet, so really it's probably a bit foolish to start this process, when so much might yet change.

Anyway, here's what my WIP looks like!

...specifically for the docks section, that is, and a part of the worker's district.

The biggest project I took on this week coding wise is a basic quest system.

Here's how it works:

I have an enum quest {} which lists all available quests in the game. Then there is a struct for each quest, which holds its name, description, quest giver, quest recipient, quest type, reward type, reward value and more.

When the player speaks to a quest giver, a script scr_add_quest() checks that this quest ID isn't already in the quests_array of our quest manager, and then adds it to the array. The active quests get listed in a quest menu. At each step, the quest manager runs a script scr_check_quest_receptor to see:

a.) if there are quests in the array whose status is "ready" (for being handed in)

b.) if the quest recipient marked in the quest ID's struct is in this room. If so, it checks a boolean in the receptor to tell them they are waiting for a quest, and the recipient, upon interaction, runs script scr_complete_quest, whcih pays out the reward and removes the quest from the active quest list.

Right now the only functional quest is picking up a quest from the lady NPC to drop something off at the post box, and the player can interact with the postbox to earn some extra money.

What makes this system work for me is that it works even when I leave the room - it should enable me to access recipients across the whole map, no matter where they are, and only interfere with their dialogue when a quest actually becomes relevant!

Because I never wrote a quest system before I'm quite pleased with this little set-up so far and hope it will be decently scalable for various quest types in the future. I've already set up the barebones of fetch quests that require the player to collect multiple different items!

My next big project will be change my dialogue setup a bit.

Right now, when an object creates dialogue it has to give it its ID, and when dialogue ends a boolean "dialogue end" is turned on. Based on this, the object could give out an item or quest at the end of the dialogue. But this means I have to run all the if-statements I ran to determine the dialogue all over again to determine what text-end condition is required.

So instead, I want to extend the create_textbox script to accept instructions for what should happen after the textbox closes. Like running a script, or adding an item or quest. Then the textbox object, when it closes, will run that script.

[choinheap]

I wrote about the water shader that likely netted me like 300 followers on twitter:

[brittany-lindo-dev-blog]

Game Dev Log Update 11/1/2022

So prototyping is going great, we got two demos almost complete. Originally the demo was going to be one big thing, however due to time constraints, I had to narrow down and break it up into two separate demos to highlight the prototype process. Ironically I was meant to update earlier, but I got a job! I'm working for an Indie company right now (They are wonderful by the way) and learning more of the game dev process. One thing to note for future games: always do pre production first, no matter how good your game is, how amazing your idea is, pre production is a must, prototyping is a must, it has you learn your limits before you invest too much before you're forced to back track. Always plan, write out, sketch, and use assets if you're strapped for time. This is to any future game devs out there, there is no shame in using engine assets or even art assets, you can always change them out later to achieve your vision, but get all that energy out now. Its hard, especially when its just you, and I know it can look easy from videos and tutorials and social media also makes it seem like it. It's not, its' rough and thats fine, all those devs that made it overnight? It was years in the making.

[unstablescientific]

I’m having fun making NPCs today! This guy, head of the secret semiconductor lab, needs a name.

[amadeus-salieri]

gameDev log:

So. I haven't updated about my game in two weeks. That's cause, while animating the sprites I encountered a glitch I was stuck on for literally a week and a half. I can't even call it a glitch cause the code itself was fine it's just my dumbass got my left and rights mixed up when naming the animations.

....

A week and a half of tweeking code ... Pointlessly. INCREDIBLE.

Anyway I'm thinking weekly updates is probably too often. I'll probably settle on bi-weekly or monthly updates, depending on progress.

Here's a doodle of one of the characters.

His name is Magnus and he just wants a little nom...

[chrisdedev]

Got my miner pathfinding setup so it takes both my tilemaps and generates where the miner can walk to find a path.

[blqgumi]

My game demo is out now! Let me know what you think on my itchio or you can go to my ko-fi and download it from there too!

[justinkowo]

Game Dev Log #1 : how.

[tissueinu]

After learning from my own past mistakes, I'm restarting a game I began in 2019 using GameMaker Studio 2. This time around, I've switched to Godot as I feel I can develop much quicker using this engine. In this devlog series I'll go over how I handle the project's development while working a full-time job as a software engineer. Join me on this journey!

 🐦 Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TissueInu

🎮 Play my games on Itch: https://tissueinu.itch.io/

🎵 Follow me on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tissueinu

[xanderwoodgamedev]

Devlog 2 is live. New devlogs every Friday. Follow my journey as I build a meaningful choice topdown RPG. https://www.youtube.com/c/XanderwoodGameDev #gamedevelopment #gamedev #solodev #indiegame #gamedevlog #devlog #construct3 #c3 #madewithconstruct #gamedevlife https://www.instagram.com/p/CHrnBeQF_9Z/?igshid=dycqsjjyqyi5

[marcomoutinho-art]

Em breve iremos abrir o nosso canal de YouTube para inaugurar o nosso Devlog. Se quiserem nos suportar no Patreon basta pesquisar por Caravel Game Studio. Ainda estamos e estou a descobrir o Tumblr por isso deixem o vosso Feedback é muito importante para nós. 😁