Second Week of Work: Alpha is on the way

Today marks the end of the second week of work on the game. All week I have been fixing bugs with the more advanced mechanics and creating levels. The levels are by no means final levels, but just levels for me to test so I can figure out what works and what doesn't.

I have made a decision with my deadline process: Have an alpha done by the end of May. Put it for free on the internet and let people tell me what they enjoy. In June, polish the game to get to a Beta stage. This is where levels will be nearly finalized. Then, by the end of July, have the game ready to launch.

I have the alpha build nearly completed, all of the menus and transitions between levels are in place. Next week I MUST start doing music and sound. I pushed it back a week because I was unsure of how to approach it, and I am still no closer. This weekend, as I upload videos, I will probably keep researching for more ways to make music/sound effects.

 After the alpha sound effects are integrated, I want to create a trailer, and finalize my website with a webplayer version of the game, and then uplink the website to the internet. After that, I plan to spread the game to all other gaming sites and press sites and try to get people to play the alpha. There are two weeks left in May, so I think this goal is realistic.

My hopes are that people will play the webplayer and let me know what they think of it. That way, while I start work on the beta version of the game, I can receive feedback on what people like about the game and what they don't. I still have some polishing to do with the menus, but not much at all.

Thanks for reading.

Finally uploaded the first videos

The good news: Tonight I finally got around to uploading the first youtube videos.
the bad news: Youtube doesn't let me squeeze video clips.

I will have to find another avenue to upload youtube clips that I have sped up. I will probably work on this tomorrow so I don't get so backlogged with the videos.

As far as development goes, it is moving smoothly. I have fixed many of the player animations and have started work on the first few levels. These levels are pretty much placeholders for better levels that will come after the first batch of testing is done.

Thanks for reading.

First work week is over

It is just after midnight (early Saturday) and this officially marks the end of the first week of production.

Today I was able to model, animate, UV map and import a character model into the game from Blender. The only problems right now are having the jump animations play at the right time, and STILL the double jump mechanic.

 I may end up dropping the mechanic after all since #1, it is pretty much a repeat mechanic of the "boost bubble" and #2, I have no idea how to get around working with the mess of Javascript files Unity came with.

I am importing all my recorded videos into iMovie now, which will take probably well into tomorrow afternoon until they are fully done, and then I will dub over them and upload them to youtube.

So, all in all, after the first week of development, I have completed all of the mechanics (except double jump, pending approval), the players model and animations, and most of it all hooked into Unity.

Come Monday, I will polish the animations and see if I can make smoother transitions between them, etc., create a basic working menu, and maybe start on a demo level. After the demo level is pretty much done, I will switch gears to start working on the sound effects and the music. I hope to have the demo level, sound effects, basic menu,and a polished animated player all done by next weekend.

Thanks for reading.

Most mechanics are finished

Most of the mechanics have been implemented. Production has slowed because some of the more advanced mechanics were hard to get to a playable state. However, the only mechanic remaining is the double jump.

This will probably be difficult because the character controller is programmed in UnityScript, and I code in C#, but I will make do.

Tomorrow, after I get that mechanic working, Iw ill try to work on third person mode again. I want the player to be able to scroll forwards or backwards to change the distance the camera is to the player, anywhere from first person to a distant third person angle.

I feel like production is on track, and that I am making good time.

Another thing I want to talk about is the mental/physical toll development is having on me. My body has been degrading over the week, and I can feel it get worse every day. My back is beginning to ache due to my poor posture. I also have pain in my knees which I have no reason why I have gotten it.

I can also feel my mental awareness diminishing. I almost feel like I have a lack of sleep, even though I have been getting healthy amounts of sleep. I feel like mental exhaustion is a driving force in these feelings because of how demanding coding is. Problem solving consistently all day for the whole week has left me literally mentally "out of breath".

However, I can continue developing. Tomorrow I will add in the last mechanic, try to incorporate third person mode, and start working on a player model for the 3rd person camera. On Saturday I will spend my time editing, uploading and dubbing over my recorded videos to share on youtube. This will probably pour over into Sunday as well.

Next week, my main focus will be the player model, UV map, and animations, and polishing third person mode.

Thanks for reading.

First day of Work

Yesterday was the first day of work on the game. I got quite a lot done. I will upload videos to youtube later with a dub over them, but I will wait for the weekend because iMovie takes absolutely forever to do anything. I can't put many videos to youtube directly because many are quite long, and I want to speed them up.

The three main problems that have arisen are:
1. Third person camera. Right now I can use a FPS camera and controller, however I want the option for players to use a Third person camera also. I will implement this before I do a trailer/teaser or demo.

2. Laser obstacles. The Line Renderer used in Unity isn't that appealing. The lines are far too think. I ended up modeling in Blender a simple line but it won't take the materials correctly, it is really weird. I may just end up using a temporary cylinder from within Unity.

3. Double jump. Since I am basically recycling a FPS controller, a double jump function isn't already included. I have to code it myself, and this proves to be difficult because the controller was scripted in JavaScript, while I script in C#.

I hope to update this blog once for every day I get work done.

Thanks for reading.

Last day of finals

Today was the last day of finals, which means tomorrow will be the first day of development.

Today I will probably just create the asset folders and everything to keep the game in, edit and upload a few videos to youtube if I can, and in general just get ready for a busy summer.

My post on here will probably be a little shorter than they have been previously, mainly due to me wanting to devote most of my time to the game.

Thanks for reading.

New videos every weekend

I have been thinking a lot lately about when to spend time uploading and editing videos to youtube. This will be a very time consuming process, and I have to take care of it after every little thing I do, very little will get done. For that reason, I will probably only upload videos on the weekends.

This is because my part-time job will be on the weekends, so I will have little time to work on my game anyways. However, those days I can still use what time I have to edit videos together, dub over them, and then upload them to youtube.

This will be a huge amount of content. I have no aim for minimum / maximum amount of videos per weekend, and it depends on how long I can make the videos. I will probably aim for about 10 minutes per video, and just do a time lapse of my work.

Thanks for reading.