IGB120 - Blog

This blog details my learnings from, and progress throughout the subject of IGB120 at QUT!

[maeveuniblog]

Assignment 3 postmortem

This whole assignment, and all other things throughout this subject can be summed up by one phrase I've said a lot this blog, "I don't like gdevelop."

Using this engine has constantly felt clunky, strange, and completely unfun. But the game looks nice though. A lot of the final touches that I'd been working on were some enemies, a boss, and bugfixes.

Worked on getting some playtesting done as well, just got my mum to do it lol.

This game was a nice concept, and a cool idea, similar to some I'd done in IGB100 this semester. I definitely feel as if there was a bit more that we could have expanded upon, in regards to a level up system and the like.

anyways Yippie! We're submitting the final version of the assignment tonight and I hope that goes smoothly. Our team has worked hard and completed a project we're overall happy with

[maeveuniblog]

Assignment 3 Play testing

With assignment 3, I'm not undertaking the majority of the play testing, and wasn't able to attend the main play testing day, but I do have information that was gathered from those events.

The reports are as follows:

From these reports we can see a general lack of understanding in what the goal of the game is, as well as an issue with the level of difficulty. Though we can also see that most players love the design of the game. We can see some disparity between the controls, with some players enjoying them and some players disliking them.

With future development of the level up system, as well as possibly a more clear UI to indicate the overall goal of the game, which is simply to survive, similar to Vampire Survivors.

[maeveuniblog]

Assignment 3 Progress Update + Group Formation

Assignment 3 is going well! I've got a group that seems motivated, and have been assigned things that I'm good at working on. I'm working on Terran Defenders, Evie C's game. This week, I've been trying to a variation of attacks working, as well as a basic level up system.

So far, I've got a tri shot implemented, as well as a melee attack, and another member has a laser beam attack, and shockwave.

In order to balance some of these attacks, the amount of damage that they do has been reduced. For example, the tri shot beam has the damage per bullet reduced by 20%. With the laser attack, the cool down for the time it takes for enemies to take damage is reduced, so it feels more like a true laser rather than an occasional tick of damage.

I'm encountering a similar issue that I had with my asteroids prototype in regards to the leveling up system in which text boxes seem to not disappear after I've hidden them.

[maeveuniblog]

Racing Postmortem

I did not get much time to work on this game at ALL. I've had 25hr work weeks + two other subjects that are very content heavy and I hadn't really found the time to implement any of the things I wanted into this game. I got some of the basic enemies working, like extending them to cover the whole highway, I had a background design in the works, and I had some attacks from the enemies in the works as well. It's by no means anywhere near a finished prototype, but I really like the idea that I came up with.

If I had the time this cycle I would've loved to make this game into an actual prototype and not... well nothing. But that's okay, I'm working on assignment 3 now and have a bit more free time to work on that so hopefully I can contribute a lot more.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Postmortem

The asteroids game has probably been my most favorite to work on so far, but also the more annoying of the two prototypes. Trying to get the textboxes to work, and the different bool variables to trigger at the right time was Really Really annoying, and I couldn't get it done.

If i were able to work in another engine maybe, like Unity2D, I think I'd love to extend this game into something a bit more fleshed out, with a fully library system to see the germs you've fought so far, a bit more variability in the germs, just things like that.

[maeveuniblog]

Assignment 2 Progress

I had a bunch of other assignments that took up the majority of my time the past few weeks, plus a 20 hour work week, plus family coming over so I haven't had much time to actually work on the racing game or assignment 2. But! I do have actual progress for my assignment 2 in general.

This is what I've got so far. The general idea of this one sheet is that the left side of the screen is the general and overall descriptor, labelled on a medical chart to fit the theming of the game. The right side of the screen is then filled with smaller bits of information on how the game works.

I've for a section for enemy/friendly types and a description on how the descriptions of these types work. I want to include a bit in there about game mechanics as well, and then I'm not sure what the last little bit will be.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Mini Update #3

I've had a few of my friends look over my scripting for the asteroids game and none of them can figure out what's wrong either. I think that I'm done working on the game.

I got a few of the fundamental systems that I want to working, like the introduction of different germs, the combat system, and the healing system (kind of). Not a good prototype, but a prototype.

I'll write a proper post-mortem for the asteroids game when i get home / play eight hours of cs2 and realise that I haven't written the post-mortem yet

[maeveuniblog]

Racing Update #1

What up maeveuniblog blog fam! Welcome back to another AWESOME game update!

I honestly don't really think that the game I'm making fits the racing game criteria but neither does the example sooooo i think I'm fine.

I followed the example and have a basic enemy spawn system set up, and to extend upon, I've changed player movement and the camera controls. I've also made the highway a Lot bigger, in accordance to my game idea

that little score is just for me to see that it's still working just in case something breaks

I have a little to do list that i want to implement:

Make new enemy models

Make enemies spawn across more lanes of the highway

Make enemies spawn from the sides of the highway that travel down, shooting projectiles to their left or right depending on what side they spawn on

new background (errrm epic drawing tablet moment i'm gonna make it myself :D)

title screen

music

should be ready for playtesting around step 3 hopefully

given that GDevelop doesn't make me Hate it again that is. its been mostly fine with this game, like nothings been too hard to implement/given me a massive headache like with the asteroids game.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Mini Mini Update

Turns out they're not spawning at all.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Mini Update #2

I hate GDevelop. That is all.

Well it's not all, I just really don't like using this language. I try to delete an object and it just... won't delete. I try to spawn in an object and for some reason it's? Not visible at all? IDK it's weird.

Anyways, I've added another part of the game that I wanted to, that being the healing items/red blood cells. When you damage these, they deal 5HP of damage to you, but when you let them hit you they heal you for 10HP. Only thing is, they're not showing up in game. I know that they're there, because randomly my HP will go down by 5, but they're just not visible.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Mini Update

What did I say, look at that! Lovely and working

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Update #2

I'm on a bit of a kick today, finished another one of my assignments so I've decided to do a bit of work on my Asteroids game.

For one, my "display germ info" message at the start of the game has... stopped working... which is nice.

Not sure why to be perfectly honest, but I'm sure I'll be back with a "small update" in like half an hour saying it's fixed... surely...

In other news, I've updated the player model, so now it displays in which way they will shoot the white blood cell pellets.

I've also got a barebones health system working, but I'm still trying to work with GDevelop, as it's not exactly working but it is working if that makes any sense.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids Update

The more i work on this assignment the more i realize that I really don't like GDevelop. Either way, I've got something now. I got a new drawing tablet a few days ago, so I'm going to try and make all the assets for this game myself. Which to be honest will probably end up in it looking... not great. But that's okay!

A little preview of the information screen for diseases here, not sure why the back button is like that but whatever. Each description shows the disease as it's game icon, the name, and what exactly the disease is/does.

To implement the part of Asteroids games that has the titular asteroids breaking apart into smaller pieces, I'll use viruses that spread and duplicate quickly. They'll start as bigger enemies but slowly become smaller with each shot taken.

This is a little look at what actual play looks like so far. The place where the bone shoots from isn't great, it's being shot from the exact center of the bone, which is something I'm going to change. The small little Strep Throat bugs will move slowly towards the player from a random point on screen. (This random point will be far away enough from the player so that enemies don't spawn practically on top of them).

To be perfectly honest I'm putting a lot more effort into this one than I did the last, and I'm hoping that turns out well.

[maeveuniblog]

Asteroids pitch

I had a really hard time coming up with a pitch for an asteroids game, it feels like a genre in which there's not really much room to work with,,,

But! I have come up with something!

A draft for the game pitch:

"top down, educational asteroids inspired game, in which you play as a piece of bone marrow fighting off disease by shooting them with the while blood cells you produce. the game aims to be educational; each time a new germ or bug appears on screen, a small info box appears, with the symptoms that they cause, as well as how to prevent infection by them. healthy cells will also spawn, which the player must avoid shooting. enemies will appear in waves, and with each wave defeated the player's shoot speed will level up, being able tot produce more white blood cells to fend off harder enemies."

The main and most vital player experience goal for this game would be education. The player should feel as if they have learnt something new when they've finished playing this game. The game needs to be simple enough for children aged 8-13 to be able to play, but also engaging enough for all audiences to enjoy.

[maeveuniblog]

Platformer Postmortem

The cycle in which we prototype a platformer is complete!

If I'm being perfectly honest, I didn't develop the platformer as much as I wanted to. The start of this semester has been way way way way way way way way busier than i expected, so I frankly didn't have much time to work on it. (If any uni students are reading this, part time work and full time uni are NOT a good combo)

Working on a game that I've been thinking about for a really long time in a new engine that I don't really enjoy like... at all made me lose a lot of motivation to make more levels, or try to make a functioning game.

All of the fundamental aspects that this platformer would need are there. The primary game mechanics are set in place, with major room for more development in future. Assets and a general vibe for the game had been created, a tutorial system was shown, UI elements, and actual game play were all on display.

To extend the game, different kinds of moving platforms, and hazards would be added. I want to come back to this game at a later date but in something like Unity or Godot; engines I'm familiar with, and with a larger scope of capabilities.

I've uploaded the prototype that I did make to Itch.IO, but frankly, it's not worth playing. In a few years, maybe one day as a solo project I'd want to make it into it's own game. Possibly in a Game Jam, it feels like a Game Jam sort of game.

Anyways, the next cycle is for an Asteroids inspired game, which I better get thinking on.

[maeveuniblog]

Play testing Update

A little mini update here, just to display some play testing results that were undertaken

Both play testers had very similar views overall in the questions table. An important note would be the fact that to neither play tester there was a very limited sense of tension. I'm hoping to fix this with future levels, some of which include objects such as a turret that shoots bullets towards the player or something like that.

I haven't really made much more progress on the game, I only want to make maybe one more level given the play testers feedback. The more that I use GDevelop, the more that i dislike it.

[maeveuniblog]

Platformer Progress Update #1

I've started properly actually making the platformer, and it doesn't seem too hard to implement what I want to. I've got two basic levels so fair, a small UI system, and a player model (grabbed from Itch.IO: https://luizmelo.itch.io/evil-wizard-3)

I don't think I'm gonna add sound effects as they're not really necessary for this prototype in my opinion.