#benssentials

[lockylab-blog]

The more i learn about Game Dev, the deeper in Love i fall.

3 weeks of learning to code properly and the things that I have created have been astounding. Well for me anyway hahah. From drifting trucks, to multiplayer tanks, to flying sims and even Minecraft. well poor mans Minecraft hahah. 

I’m not going as far and saying that i am a programmer or even that good at coding but I”ve gone from this:

To this:

 in only a manner of weeks, just shows how good it is to knuckle down and learn things properly. Speaking from a design perspective being able to accurately explain your ideas through prototypes is amazing. I am not very good at writing and articulating myself that well, so the ability to effectively prototype and communicate through interactive means seems very valuable to me. And i think in general valuable to most devs.

I understand this might sound trivial and obvious to others like “of course its valuable how did you not know that” however over the past 3 weeks of getting my hands dirty with coding, that notion has become cemented within me.

I will continue to further my ideas with usable prototypes to flesh out ideas and test them before i test them so to speak haha i definitely want to go deeper into some coding ideas and principles just to learn more about them. My heart really lies with producing and organising project especially within the industry that i love so much. Having this knowledge of how disciplines do the great work that they do has open my mind and given me so much more respect and love for the people who create this industry and the games I love.  

[lockylab-blog]

Project progress.

i have completed the first stage of the character control script. 

I have the movement left and right down, the jump is minimal but works well, these figures will most likely change. I put a delay in for the jump so it cannot be spammed, and you can only jump once on a surface. It took me a really long time to get the latter right, raycasting was a nightmare to sort out, but its done now yay.

the next stage at the moment is to tweak the player movement to become smoother, however i wont be able to do that until i have a level. So really the next stage really is get the vertical scrolling down.

[lockylab-blog]

Spring Jumping

Today i got the first platform behaviour in place. spring loaded.

The speed and height of the spring will need to be adjusted but not until testing. Or at least the level is built. Progress is so exciting, i’m loving all of this

[lockylab-blog]

Point + Click Action

Today I was shown how to create a point and click Diablo style game using Nav meshes and more triggers.

This was a really interesting exercise i can see how a lot of RTS games are made using this set a path for the unit sort of approach. Initially all i had was the two enemies within the level but i decided to keep going and added a door to be opened once the enemies were killed with a simple script. 

Then followed by a trigger to open a door which leads to a boss.

The boss isn't really a boss just a giant enemy with more health, which i guess all bosses really are hahah.

Very fun exercise!!!!!!!

[lockylab-blog]

New Project Time

Yes yes yes, i have started a new project this time around its a solo one and its all about prototyping. Its called Rainbow Re’em (working title)

I have to create a prototype game that demonstrates the core mechanics and feeling before being handed off to the necessary disciplines for the next stage of development. (However the next stage is not happening or is it........).

For this project i have written up a new GDD, and a small scope document. I’ve done a GDD before and that time it blew out of proportion like crazy, i wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. Previously my GDD was 56 pages long and had a lot of content, on this GDD it is 21 pages and lots of them are pictures. 

The game is a 2D vertical scroller where you jump from platform to platform, for as long as you can. Nothing original i know, but considering my coding skills are not that great and i am just learning i thought it would be best to scope appropriately. Oh and the best part you are a unicorn jumping on clouds, along a rainbow. woo woo.

In the past with other projects i have been able to scope well, especially on my previous project, where a team and myself built a level from scratch. This project will be no exception. Overall i have allowed for 56hrs in total for the project, whilst having a decent amount of variety within the game i.e different platforms, time for polish and time for testing a debugging. 

I am looking forward to getting stuck into this project i think it is going to be difficult for me because i have raised the bar for myself and i have a decent idea of what kind of product i want to produce. Setting myself a decent challenge to overcome, will keep me on track and push me to become a better designer. All progress requires sacrifice.

[mariobaronedev]

SAVE!(and often)

We’re slowly replacing our grey box items with completed, textured models, to recreate Queen Victoria Square in Melbourne for our Mother Duck game.

This was originally going to be a “hero” model, but we decided not do so, as we thought it wouldn’t need as much texel and polygon fidelity as some of our other key objects.

And the reference!

This model took me slightly longer than I would like to admit, I made the foolish mistake of not saving often enough in Maya and paid the price. more soon