More writing and planning with n1rvanna (don’t ask, and don’t make me rush it please it’s going so well), coupled with character design for the current chapter in Project D. We have decided to move ahead and use Chapter 4 as the template for the rest since it’s less bloated (the script has 50-something pages, half of it gameplay compared to chapter 3’s 80-something with mostly cutscenes with a ton of sets) and compact, with less environments and maps (most of the scenes are for cutscenes and one big dungeon-esque map for the finale).
Newprogrammer has been fighting some bugs but tomorrow I should be able to playtest the new battles. As mentioned, the next step is the flow tools as I like to call them and then adapt the script into the game. I’ll have to finalise at least a rough draft of the entire game soon-ish if I want to outsource all models on schedule…
Didn’t update more since all of my work has been drawings and writings I can’t give much details about or show, so it’d have been the usual “been working on writing stuff”. The good news is that it’s all coming along very well. I’ve been also doing lots of research on certain topics, moods, how to achieve certain type of visuals. All fun.
Battles are working again on project D sans a few things like damage numbers (for some reason they all showing as MISSING) and the usual AI behaviors but it’s close.
I’m really feeling the work I’m doing as of late, even if it’s a bit more chill than expected. Turns out not all work on games is miserable grind and honestly the more we go along the more I realize just how much of this is ART. For a long time I’ve been helming things (unsuccessfully) in the direction of a software development company. Sure, we treat our games as art, but not the process… and now that I do, everything feels like it just works. Not saying there’s no problems or pressures, but the shift in mentality has improved everyone’s mood quite a bit and everything we do has more weight and meaning that before.
I just wish we never announced N1rvanna when we did, that way I’d be in ultra chill mode without guilt instead of “damn, gotta deliver at some point” (tho again, we had no idea about the ordeal that was to come). This is not to say I’m doing it out of some sort of promise or commitment, but rather the nagging feel on the back of my neck that comes with expecations is something I could live without. Whenever that game is out is gonna be some wild shit and I doubt people will be indifferent to it.
More writing work, and a surprising amount of revelations about game writing in general came up.
You see, in my free time I’ve been writing screenplays for films I’d like to make if that opportunity ever arises. So when I change over to game writing and resort to gameplay elements for characterization or set ups (think of Jill buying things to focus, or reading Augmented Eye to get small context on some characters), that’s where I realize the true power of video games as an art form. Things you can only transmit through visuals or dialogue in movies can be completely replaced by game mechanics if you know what you’re doing. Now, I already knew this! But going from a weekend writing a movie screenplay to game writing today made all of it the more obvious, and is subsequently making me integrate more game aspects with characterization and other aspects of the story.
I think newprogrammer is almost done with the current tasks of cleaning up and refactoring the battle system. Goal this week is to have all of that going so we can start the rest of the flow tools.
More writing at the park, by far my favorite activity now. Tho I wonder when the novelty will wear off. I think I’ll have to look for ways to spice up my way of doing things every so often in order to keep momentum when I need it, since it crashes down quite aggressively when I get bored of it.
For now though, it’s really cool! I like to write things with a pen since I can’t erase, so I have to think twice before writing a line of dialogue. Because of this I now act the lines out as if I was in a movie (I would already do this, but it was always after I wrote things down), and then I put the words on paper. The result is so far quite good, tho it doesn’t help structure that much; It’s my weak point.
Finally done with the migration and set up for project D (the tasks I mentioned yesterday, plus a couple new ones that arised today) and the game is looking better than ever. Next is to keep myself writing while newprogrammer wraps up the rest. There’s possibly something left for me to do but I’ll remember sooner or later.
Finished tweaking the last batch of player animations among other tasks, including new props and new vfx for grenade range. It felt quite light today, mostly by the fact I went out for longer than usual to do writing outside the confines of my apartment and computer. Just me, alone in the park writing my heart out on paper listening to cool music (the Lethal Weapon soundtrack this time). As it turns out I was able to concentrate big time, so I might start writing on paper more often. Preferably while outdoors.
Said writing wasn’t for project D though 🙂
Tomorrow I’ll probably finish tweaking the second humanoid enemy with the new proportions like I mentioned yesterday (couldn’t squeeze time for it), and look into a cleaner main menu using render textures (there’s a lot of camera conflict when I open it).
More animation work, this time to get enemies up to speed and polished for the battle rework. As expected this was a bit more fun than the player but also had to tweak more clips than usual.
Took the chance to give them more character, like having them point their guns sideways and tweak the topology since their legs were too short and looked super goofy in motion. All in all these changes made them a lot more menacing and a perfect template for future humanoid enemies.
Added trails as well using an asset I bought that I’ll disclose only if it doesn’t fuck everything up.
With this done I only have to do some minor modeling and particle work tomorrow, and update the other enemy model so it has correct proportions like this one.
By the way, instead of writing down everything single task you have pending… try instead writing down what you wanna do tomorrow when you’re done for the day. I found myself less overwhelmed and working more consistently that way. Pretty cool!
All core animations for battles and exploration are done, now I gotta do the same for humanoid enemies. That one’s gonna be trickier but a bit more fun that what I did with the player. Tasks include extending anticipation, changing angles, adding a trail to melee weapons so they can be read better and migrate a bunch of assets (like throwing grenades).
Also on the list: Ladders. I have no idea how to get those right but it’s what we settled on the exploration bits. The basics are: walking, climbing ladders and pushing boxes. Shouldn’t be anything out of this world.
Current plan is to finish migration this week and then follow up with the flow tools.
Grind goes on as always and I’ve been keeping myself busy with a lot of animation work (in large part adjusting stuff from zero since I did it quite shoddily in the previous iteration of the project). I’m almost done though, just need to go over the non-root motion stuff and come to a decision on which one we want for the finalized controls. There’s arguments in favor and against using root motion for movement but at the end it will come down to both testing and ease of use during development.
Also had a call with newprogrammer to go over the final gameplay modules and features. In the past year we’ve been experimenting a lot; saw a lot of failure and a lot of success, but it’s time we buckle down and choose what’s gonna make the cut. Things are looking up! Now it comes down to how we want the game loop to be handled from a tools standpoint. At the start I didn’t wanna make a game with a traditional loop but I’ve realized that at least for this one it’s something we can’t live without. What we got right now then is a hub-ish design; sorta kinda like Astral Chain if you’ve played that. This was always the plan, but as I wrote I realized I wasn’t treating it as such plus our tools weren’t up to speed. For example, how will the tools manage as the game goes along?: Change NPC dialogue, available NPC’s upon entering a map, available places to go, items available at stores, which player data will be carried accross chapters? and so on. After we are done refactoring and cleaning up what we have pending we’ll plan the solutions for the aforementioned problems on paper before writing a line of code. Once a consensus is reached I can go back to writing the rest of the chapters taking these final design choices into account, hopefully finish before newprogrammer is done with said final tools and then we build the game (this time for real, we’ve had like two or three false starts if this blog is anything to go by).
I realize that a lot of this should have been done before a single asset was made, but we are still amateurs and this is our first action-ish game; one that’s also in 3D. Thankfully we have the resources to take as much time as possible to get it right, tho I’m still a madman who wants to ship this year.
Last but not least, Project X just suffered a major setback and it’s possible we might have to ice it until the stars align. Won’t go much into detail but let’s hope that’s not the case. It’s a huge morale blow for me because I like to work on several games at the same time for mental health reasons. When a project becomes overwhelming the smaller one becomes a comfort game… and X was just that for me. It was in incredibly capable hands and I was mostly drawing /giving light direction (like I said, it was in capable hands).
I’m crazy, man. I love making games and I make games to relax. How does that even work?
Time to bounce. Here are some screenies showcasing the new shader for characters and equippable items. I love it.
More boring progress since we are still setting up a buncha stuff in the migration to the blank project. There’s a few things i wanna do over such as the controls and start using rootmotion for movement but it’s tricky. There’s also new unity tech (new to me anyway) that i wasn’t aware of such as the new input system and animation rigging and so far the results are great! but i doubt i’ll be using animation rigging for gameplay. I think it’s better suited for cutscenes and dialogues cause tweeining works better for transformations mid gameplay.
Newprogrammer also refactored a number of scripts and now some UI stuff that was up to 500 lines of code are now 50 so that’s pretty cool.
tomorrow i’ll keep tweaking more animations and possibly resume writing the chapter i’ve been working on.
Started work on a new script and it’s going smooth so far. I believe I’ve found the sweet spot between words and gameplay which is why any future ones might be done a bit faster, and i’ll have to trim the one i did first quite a bit. Maybe I should move some events that happen there and feature them elsewhere since there’s A LOT of dialogue . It’s gonna be interesting to balance a few things i’ve found along the way, namely see which aspects are going to be trimmed, scrapped or changed to favor the other. It’s not like the script and the gameplay loop are fighting for supremacy; it’s that they work in a very intertwined way right now it’s fun to think about that dynamic. Writing and gameplay working together and making compromises. Kinda like a marriage.
Tomorrow is ludum dare, and as usual i’ll give my best to deliver a fun, experimental game even if i got no clue right now on what to do. I had like a million ideas and they all vanished overnight or were too ambitious.
