Indie Game Dev Blog

I am new to game design and recently began taking steps to create videogames. I will be posting updates as often as they come.

[weapontostopwar]

Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

I recently have been doing a lot of programming work and the more I code the more I find my love for making games was a larger passion than I had realized. I recently showed the plane game I created to some friends and watching their eyes light up while playing was such a joy. Getting their feedback and walking them through the thought process was so much fun. I really missed it.

A friend of mine recently reached out with a game idea as a sort of joint venture type deal and I couldn't be happier to jump back into the game dev world. Seeing everyone's progress and success from way back is so crazy. Craziest way I found out about some success was when I opened up the game store on my Nintendo Switch and saw a game that I followed back in 2017. Insane, and great stuff! Posting here allows me to summarize thoughts and keep some accountability while possibly getting feedback which I like so I will probably start back up. Hope everyone has been well

[weapontostopwar]

itch.io

Threw two of my games up on itch.io, my RPGish game and Plane Game in case anyone wants to give them a try themselves, will be uploading in the near future about a project I’ve been working on but for now, here is a link to some mediocre games.

Only compatible with Android devices, hopefully everyone has Apple :)

https://weapontostopwar.itch.io/

[weapontostopwar]

Pulling The Plug

So for the past two months a friend and I have been working on a short project to present on Halloween. I was thinking I would have more than enough time and of course underestimated my procrastinating abilities. What you will see now is the final product that I presented on Halloween and most likely the final state of this game in general, as I will be moving onto a new project.

So first things first I needed to make the game more inviting and make the player feel more welcome, so I made the ring you are supposed to fly through turn green and also added a guidance arrow.

I also made some changes to the background, and also found a cool moving skybox from the asset store.

The next thing I worked on was implementing a complete screen at the end of each level. I added highscores and there was supposed to be a reward of money with which you could purchase new planes and such.

While this was fairly easy to implement, adding that score to the level information screen was a complete nightmare, however I did get it working eventually.

So, that is the end of that project, which aside from not exactly finishing it and having everyone who played it complain about the controls, I had a really fun time developing this game.

My next game will be in the same realm of mobile vehicle game, but with cars this time.

[weapontostopwar]

Superman 64

So I’ve been thinking about the direction of the gameplay in the flight game, and so far its been pretty boring aesthetically. So I wanted to try something new and stray away from the previous realistic look that it kinda had.

I wanted to make it feel more fun and put less emphasis on the surroundings and more on the gameplay, which as you can see has had some reworking. 

Basically instead of the whole, glide until you fall, Ive made it so you fly endlessly and your goal is to get through rings. Trust me the last thing I wanted to do was remake Superman 64 but I have to say its far better than what I had before.

With the rings I also added a power up, which currently is bugged but will exist along some other items you can pick up throughout your time in a level.

I really like the way the game looks on mobile and will be getting some opinions from some of my friends to see if the direction is better. Still having a blast on this project and should have it done by Halloween.

[weapontostopwar]

Sooo its been more than a week since I updated the game and its getting pretty slow. I’m not sure how to enhance the gameplay much besides change it from a plane game to something else. Maybe reworking the flight system for tilt controls or even a normal joystick might make it more accessible. 

The main problem people who play my game are having is that when you pull up (press up) you go up, when you push down (press down) you go down. Also a plane doesnt turn like a car, you tilt then pull up to turn. 

Basically the mechanics have been hard to get simpler so I’ve just got some menu improvements.

Added a level select menu, with some visuals in the background.

I then added an information page for each level, with the first one being the exquisitely named “forest” level. 

And uhhh yea thats about it, I’m gonna add some other levels and hopefully improve the controls, maybe add a tutorial or something. 

[weapontostopwar]

Plane Game Update

Been working on the game a lot over the past couple weeks, but because of school I haven’t had much time to put together an update. Finished some exams and decided its time to show whats new.

So I’ve made improvements to the plane select menu, a lot of people who played the game needed more than just my assurance that they picked a different plane, so I added lights and stuff.

The main menu now displays the currently selected plane and planes stay selected between menu transitions. This is my first project with multiple menus so making selections persist into gameplay was very challenging to say the least.

Added more mechanics into the game with the implementation of the functioning wind column. Its a place holder for now, just can’t really think of anything else to put at the moment.

And to all of you people like my one friend, yup you can choose a locked plane. But jokes on you cuz you can only move in a straight line hahaha, checkmate!

A bit close too finishing this project, just need to add a sort of level select and of course collectible items to increase your score. The higher the score the more levels/planes that are unlocked. 

[weapontostopwar]

Weird Glitch

Found a really strange glitch where changing from one scene to the next, then back to the first causes weird stuff to happen with the UI. In this case moving from the Main Menu scene to the Game scene causes the Plane Select menu to act as though it is still in edit mode.

The camera stays facing straight in the Plane Select menu instead of looking at the planes, and the UI text is the default text I added in the inspector. Everything that is supposed to be changing does so through code, mainly the update function, which seems to just not be working. The Main Menu and the Plane Select menu are all in one scene, however I have another scene prior to all of this just to store variable that carry throughout the scenes. 

I’ve been sitting here for atleast 4 hours just bashing my head against this one, and its the worst because I dont even know what the problem is so I am not sure what to search for help.

Rip Plane Game (8/12/18 - 9/9/18)

jk but still really upset though, because it’s probably some simply crap I’m overlooking.

Edit: Just found out, that if you return to the Main Menu through the Game Over screen the plane select menu functions fine, however, selecting a plane does not.

Edit: Fixed!! Turned out to be an issue where pausing the game would actually pause the update method thus making the Plane Select Menu seem as though it were still in edit mode. Wow.

[weapontostopwar]

Plane Game

+So I’ve been kinda sorta hard at work on my latest project, which I’m going to call “Flight Game” for now, and it’s been coming along quite nicely for my pacing. I have everything except the uhhh main gameplay part which will be added in... eventually, but for now you can fly a plane and, uh, well crash it, that’s about it for now.

I also worked on a main menu and plane select screen which took a lot longer than I had planned. Im kinda going for planes that glide, but dont want to be to realistic about it. I like the style of the select screen and really want to try and incorporate it into the gameplay. If any of that was confusing thats cuz I too am confused lol. Planes + fun = what Im trying to do.

Boxes in the menu select are just place holders, not planes lol. Gameplay is going to focus on staying in the air through the use of wind columns and boosts. Been a blast to work on so far!

[weapontostopwar]

Moving On

So its been about a year since I started working on a project to see what I could do in unity. Something I learned is that making a game is extremely difficult, and even more so a game that has a lot of RPG elements. I didn’t really have much of a vision but I wanted to sort of test the waters and see what I could do as a noob in unity.

What I found was a lot of long nights, stressful debugging processes, excruciating play errors, and that C# and C++ are more like distant cousins than siblings. Most importantly what I found was great time with friends, really funny physics bugs, and just that I had a blast almost every second I worked on that project. I feel like I have learned so much about coding and unity that even with this year long project being left unfinished I feel as though I have finished so much.

The project that currently sits in my unity archives under the name “RPGgame” was a great proof of concept for me and I ended it with the implementation of a combo system.  Not because it was something I wanted, but cuz some of my friends would always say it needed one. Whelp here ya go!

It was pretty frustrating to implement, but hey I guess if I ever try and make something similar you can bet it’ll have a combo system.

So with that being done, and me not really wanting to start another year long project me and a friend decided to have a friendly competition where we work on a shorter game and have it finished by october.

My idea instantly went to a mobile game with some sort of kinetic movement and physics, and somehow landed on a paper airplane/flight simulator-esque game.

Flight Simulator 2019 coming soon!

[weapontostopwar]

Its been quite a while since Ive posted an update, but its at the point where I need to come up with some sort of gameplay beyond just combat (cuz as it stands the combat is kinda bad) so Im going to be adding puzzles to some extent.

The mechanic behind the puzzles will include doors which act as portals between worlds. Kind of like Monsters inc and going through the worlds will reveal the answers to the current problem.

Took me forever just to make the cabin and inside along with another cafe/arcade type area that was scrapped, modelling is definitely a weak point for me.

[weapontostopwar]

Added a low poly water surface generator with a texture some zelda fans might be familiar with, just a placeholder for now.

Changed the level around a bit, trying to make a hub world type deal but its tricky carrying the player instance across scenes.

Added a death state to enemies, they kinda just fall over, but its better than just disappearing.

Also fixed the mini maps touch pan so it only receives input when it is displayex, and added a little player marker.

“Slow progress is better than no progress” - That one guy

[weapontostopwar]

So a few rough changes added. Mini map moved to pause menu, still pretty buggy tho Enemy deals damage, hit boxes and knockback make it closer to bumper cars than anything else, but still a work in progress Added health and experience bars which scale level. Level also determines damage you take and damage given. Oh and also the camera was giving people perspective issues in orthographic mode, so I just set it back to a normal perspective view. Still need to add a damage taken animation to the player and a lot of refinement in general.

[weapontostopwar]

Been working recently on attacking and enemies. The enemy here is basically a reskin of the mc cuz laziness, but I think it makes for a decent attack dummy. Hit detection is still a little off, it would be great if I could limit the hit box to certain frames of the animation but from what I’ve looked up it doesn’t exist in Unity. Thinking of maybe just covering it up with some wooshy sword thing. Seeing more kinetic motions is making for a far more interesting dev process, just gotta run it past my “elite” beta testers to see what they think.

[weapontostopwar]

So I realized that a lot of progress I had made was not showing up using the capture add on in Unity so Im using DU Screen Recorder off of the Play store to show off some of the UI elements. I am currently working on some enemies, and pathfinding is working nicely. Still not quite sure about the direction of the game, but its really fun to work on!

[weapontostopwar]

So I made some pretty cosmetic changes recently. So first I changed the camera to an isometric viewing angle with an orthographic perspective. I adjusted the character movement to make him feel heavier along with some much needed changes to the camera.

I had previously made it so the camera would be stationary and move to set locations to give the game a more cinematic feel, but everyone who played it felt like the game was pretty resident evil-like. 

As the game is being made for mobile platforms I made it so the camera would follow touch inputs and the zoom level is controlled by a slider. 

Lastly I added a shader to the character to make him visible through walls, which is the occasional black texture being seen.

[weapontostopwar]

Well here is my character animating and moving with my own animations and 3rd person controller. It took a fairly long time but with some minor changes and some mesh fixes I think it won’t be looking too bad. Still need to add jumping as well as some mechanic to make it more than just a platformer.

[weapontostopwar]

It’s extremely hilarious that I am basically back where I started near the beginning of this project. 

No clear objective Same movement Same tree and rock models Same friggin camera angle my life

edit: Actually the movement here was still move forward and turn, but still though!

[weapontostopwar]

Pretty Boring update

Made a whole bunch of changes that are not exactly present in the video. I added a crazy camera movement system and went through a bunch of different character movement styles, but people who played it didn’t think it was all too great. I kept getting comments relating it to resident evil with the horrible turn then move forward controls. To say the least I had to change it.... all

Went back to a basic 8 direction-esque movement, with (I’m debating) a fixed camera. I also added a sword for some attacking. Pretty bad animation right now but it’ll get better, animation is pretty tricky for me