Game Gen - Week 33

 Lots of Projects!

In my last blog, I touched up some code in my StarPaws game, but this week, I've got a lot more going on!

Overview Clip:

Please enjoy this video of some clips of each of the projects I've been working on. 

Star Paws

Star Paws is a 2D resource management game I've been working on. Recently, I've made some further progress on the full resource requirement and selling loop. I still have much more to do in this game, but it is coming along! I have put together all of the clips of my games in the video I've included, but here's some points on the progress I've made with Star Paws:

• Resources only show on the map if you have an adequate Base level. 
• Resources spawn and can be collected once you've built a farm. 
• The player's inventory, including their gold amount, is saved to the save game. 
• Players can level up their base to see more resources become available. 
• Once resources are collected, players can add goods to their trade inventory and sell items to NPCs for gold. 

Overall the main loop is mostly working, though I have a few bugs to clean up, and the experience of learning C++ has been very valuable. 

Level Design

I took on another opportunity recently to work with an alumni that many will know, David Delgado. I was asked if I'd be interested in doing some level mock-ups for him, and I have really enjoyed starting out mocking out a "Lab" level. I still have a few more rooms in the Lab to complete before I can move on to the next level idea, but it's been super fun to help him out with his game. His player and AI mechanics are amazing and if the levels are pulled off well, the game could really be a smash hit!

Here are some screenshots of the level designs I've been working on:

Halloween Game Jam

I really enjoy Halloween and when I saw that Game Gen was doing another game jam, I wanted to jump on the opportunity! Rather than using Construct as I did last time with Blood Cell Bash, however, I am using Unreal Engine to create a mash-up of a platformer-type experience and Gun Fight. So far I've made some fun mechanics, materials, and level design, but I've only just begun on this short game so stay tuned for what's to come! In this game, in the last few days I've made:

• Moving platforms
• A custom kill volume
• Enemy AI boss with 4 different attack types including:
• Melee attacks
• Blood Bullet shooting
• Minion spawning
• Teleportation
• Minion enemies with melee attacks. 
• First-person shooting mechanics in a third-person game template when the player aims. 
• Player HUD with Health bar, ammo amount, reload animation, and crosshairs. 
• The player's shooting revolver attack. 
• Grenade and player grenade throwing attack. 
• Several blended animations and animation states for custom character movement when shooting, throwing, etc. 

Here are some screenshots from the Halloween Game: 

Goals:

My goals for the next two weeks are these:

• Bug fixing in Star Paws main game loop
• Create functionality to level up farms in Star Paws. 
• Finish Lab Level in David's game. 
• Finish Halloween full concept with win and lose scenarios. 

Game Gen - Week 31

 Back in Action

I was thankful to get to take a couple of trips this September for my birthday and for the Affirmation Deck project! The events went well but I've been pretty wiped out from all the traveling and excitement. That being said, I still made some progress in my Space Paws game which I'm excited to share!

Last Star Paws Progress:

Last we left off, I had just finished getting the "explore" functionality working for players to discover new resources on which they will be able to build farms. This includes a timer function that uses the resource's distance from the player's base to calculate how long the discovery will be. 

Latest Development Checkpoints:

Getting Organized: 

To get myself better organized as I tackle this complex game, I started creating a "Jira" project to map out my tasks better. This really helps me stay focused on one step at a time without getting too ahead of myself and where I'm currently at in development. 

I can brainstorm ideas and features I'd eventually like to have in the backlog, or bugs I need to fix, and choose certain tasks that are manageable to work on each day/week. 

Continuing on Farming Functionality

The resource farming then selling loop is complete in its most basic format! You can now discover a resource, build a farm, farm resources, and add them for sale which NPCs will then buy and give you gold for! 

The resources also appear only if you meet the required Base Level to discover them, otherwise, they will be hidden from the player. 

Code Clean Up

I also worked a lot on cleaning up my code and was able to even remove an entire actor that was unnecessary and move its functionality into an actor I already had. This improved the amount of communication I needed to maintain between different C++ actors and made the code more manageable. 

Next Steps:

- Bug fixing in the main gameplay loop, like crashes when interacting with the UI at the same time an NPC buys something. 

- Updates to the farming loop, requiring certain gold and resources to build or upgrade a farm. 

- Continue brainstorming on further functionality to make the game more enjoyable.