I have been working quietly away at the game. So time to not be quiet.
Do you like houses? Do you like entering into houses? Do you like your house? Does it have a door? I bet it does. I bet you like using that door. Did you remember to take off your shoes? Ew, you dirty gamer.
So yeah, doors. The bane of my mother’s existence whenever the whole family visits with their filthy shoes. If there were no doors, there would be no way to enter and mess up the carpet. But this is getting off topic. I’ve implemented a basic door system to take the player inside buildings. I repeat, it’s very basic. The screen fades to black, I move the player, it waits a second for the camera to automatically move to the player, it fades back in. A very simple solution. The interior is stored in the same scene. I could potentially load in a new scene with the house interior on it and deload the other and have the player on a base scene…. But that’s too much work right now. I’ve got other problems like what’s the basic gameplay going to be like? Idk, it will take a while to tune it to a good flow.
At my day job, I mostly work in 3D. I’ve rarely delved into the 2D features of Unity except for game jams. To help right this grave injustice to Unity 2D, I’ve begun to learn how to use the tilemap system. It feels nice to use and makes detailing the ground very easy…. However all the detailed sprite work and tileset planning needs to be done beforehand. I probably should transition into using a tileset even if it’s just using placeholder sprites since I can always just update the tileset with the correct sprites later. But I hear you young developers out there that are probably not asking anything, “Should I use tilemaps?”. Yeah, it’s really fun to use. Easy to learn and there are a bunch of free or cheap tilesets out there you can use to get your first game up and running.
I've been working on prototyping the town and don't want a bunch of copy pasted clay huts. So I've begun making simple building layouts with basic colors. Green for the wall, yellow for the roof, whatever for the rest. Hopefully this will speed up work later down the line when I start detailing the buildings. If they have the correct scale, it should be quick to use them as a guide. If all goes well, the town layout should be completed this month. Sadly, it is at 1.5 scale but the second iteration will start with all sprites at 1 scale. The second iteration will be closer to finalized art since I don't plan the town to feature combat. If combat does show up in the town, it will be added later (but I doubt it since I've planned out the combat set pieces already so I don't want the feature creep).
Newest prototype is available here on Itch.io. It features the new door system, a different combat arena, the ability to dodge roll over bullets, and some wheat to sneak through and kite the enemies through. In the next prototype, I look to focus on combat feel. The bullets might try making the bullets more snappy. I need to limit the player's dodge rolling and fire rate and start planning on how to manage animations.
Nice of you to drop by and I hope you enjoy the game!
I'll be back next month.
