30/10/2017 Progress Report

What's Working:

• Rewrote the object spawning system. It now works on a timing system, and is iterating through a list of objects.
• Universal controller that handles weapon drops and pickups
• Controller that stores all the objects after loading them for the scene
• New content creation system (Pictured) that should let me dictate what every wave does, timings, etc.; much easier than it previously was.

What I Need To Work On:

• More enemy types
• More weapons and power ups
• Visual feedback from the HUD on various things
• Making more levels
• Lives system
• Boss fights
• Checkpoints

Other Things I'm Doing:

• Considering what to name the game
• Going to do some 3D models for the player and such soon
• Visual graphics and images
• Design work

Future Things:

• Pausing
• Sound and Music
• Art assets
• Controller support
• Saving/Loading
• Graphics/Gameplay/Sound options
• Difficulty levels
• Bonus stuff

A Few Other Words:

Remember when I said it might be a while before I post again? Well I figured that even though I'm not done with my improvements, I should probably post something.

Right well, the big thing is the new spawning system. So originally I had a system where as your score increased, it would set up the next wave. That's gone, it's now time based. Secondly, the waves themselves are now stored as an object which contains a sub-array of objects that contain information about what kind of objects spawn, how many iterations, etc. Originally it was a bunch of hard-coded instructions stored in a single script that was a pain to debug. This system is a lot simpler.

Currently I set up a test wave which contains an array which defines what is spawning on the top and bottom of the screen, which is 3 walls and 5 bullets. Once it goes through that array it wraps back around. The wave timing stuff doesn't work yet, but once I get the content creator saving and loading stuff, I'll be able to test that properly.

As for the content creator, it's basically a menu that lets me input a bunch of stuff relevant to the objects I'm using to generate stuff. It's pretty simple in theory, although with the roundabout ways to get Unity to behave it may prove to be more difficult. On that note, the UI tools themselves are quite buggy and go haywire more often than I would like, there's also not as much tools there as I would like, so I have to make some changes to the current design of it. Still, it's coming along.

OK, it will likely be another while before I post again. Stay frosty folks.