DAY 1

This first post is gonna be a redo of the first tweet I made for Devtober yesterday. I decided to do my updates on here instead because I don't like Twitter lol

DAY 2

NOW FOR TODAY'S PROGRESS I have the full character made (with some limited animation) plus some basic walking + flying movement. I plan on making flying a more involved mechanic than just WASD to fly in various directions but anyway it works on a basic level right now oh yeah

Full image of the character

https://imgur.com/a/OyAMW7Z

Video of the movement + flying

DAY 3

The day on which I actually introduce myself and what I'm doin'

Hey yall my name is Oliver and I'm currently a junior year university student, majoring in Games/Game Development. I've been wanting to make some more games on my own, in addition to those I'm working on for class. I was looking for ways I could structure this and then found Devtober and I was like oh bada bing this is perfect, and here I am.

My game is about a witch named Wendy and she's just like a cool girl who flies around on a broom (that's all I got for the game description right now, I have some ideas about how the whole thing will end up but I'm kinda just putting it together as I go along). This was a character I had created on a whim a few months ago, just because the idea of the character popped into my head and I was like oh that's cool she should have her own video game. The witch part I just came up with on Day 1 of Devtober, because it's October and I'm in a spooky mood.

So yeah now onto today's progress: Wendy can FLY in a slightly more interesting way now. Pressing Space will jump her and her broom up into the air. These air hops are a limited resource which will need to be replenished (by... collecting stuff? going fast? eating pizza? idk yet)

I'm just kinda poking around and seeing how other internet people have done flying in Unreal and getting ideas from them, in addition to trying to implement what's in my head. So yeah it's comin' along.

(still trying to figure out a good way to make GIFs, and I don't just wanna keep slapping imgur links on here, so for now we got screenshots)

DAY 4

Didn't have much time today (and like literally a whole hour of it was taken up by Unreal taking forever to start up after I enabled planar reflections, thinking it would do what I thought it would (it didn't)), but I DID start building the level of the game out a bit, if only aesthetically. My game is meant to take place at night (probably on Halloween) so I was messing with skybox and cloud stuff, and I also threw down a plane and a house-like structure to mark where Wendy's house is gonna be (the game, I'm thinking, is gonna start out on this suburban street where she walks down it a bit and some stuff happens and then she gets on her broom and starts flying and it'll be cool hopefully).

DAY 5

wooooooooo everybody give it up for Day fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvveeeeeee 

TODAY I was like I aint gonna spend much time on this

and I didn't spend much time on it

Though I did get some good stuff done despite how little time it took.

I decided the game should have pickups which replenish your Broom Hop Points (idk what exactly to call em, but Broom Hop sounds cool),

so I made these pickups; the red ones replenish your points by 10  (which is the same amount expended by a Broom Hop) and the green ones fill it to the max. I figure the mid-air acceleration-based movement in combination with the Broom Hop jump could make it reasonably entertaining to track these pickups down in order to keep yourself airborne.

I'm still not sure if something specific should happen when you lose all your points, or if you should just get a Game Over. 

I didn't take a screenshot of it, but I also got Wendy's animation to change when moving left/right in the air, so she'll turn in the correct direction depending on what direction you're facing. (And by that I mean she turns into a large black square when facing left, haven't made the sprite for that yet, but it DOES work)

Also in keeping with the Halloween theme I'm going for, I'm gonna probably make these pickups into pixel art pumpkins or something like that. They'll probably animate/dance around a bit too and just sit there in the air hangin' out I think it'll be cool.

Image of the pickups (currently at 50 Broom Hop Points)

After collecting a pickup, Broom Hop Points increase by 10 (i.e. the amount expended after doing one Broom Hop)

Collecting the green one refilled points to 100 (epic)

DAY 6 

Wasn't able to accomplish a ton today, but some progress was made towards just having the programming work a bit better and towards the animations being played depending on what direction the player moves in.

NOW Wendy can face to the left (ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!111!!!!). I also increased the max amount of Broom Hop Points from 100 to 200, since it feels better just to be able to Broom Hop a bunch more before it all runs out. Additionally all Broom Hop Points regenerate fully when Wendy touches the ground. I'm still thinking of ways to make the game a bit more challenging besides just needing to replenish Broom Hop Points, like some basic form of obstacle or something (SKELETONS MAYBE??? reply to this post if you want skeletons in the game).

To be honest it's been pretty hard to think up ideas for the flying gameplay part, though I do know I still want to implement some dialogue with text boxes and some characters you can talk to, so I'll probably focus more on that in the next few days while also thinking through how exactly I want to approach flying. I think this dialogue with other characters part will mostly occur towards the beginning of the game, just to set the scene and introduce Wendy and everything, though there'll probably be some in the middle and/or at the end of the game. I'm envisioning the structure of the game as this beginning introduction where you walk around and talk to people, followed by TAKE OFF where you get on your broom and fly somewhere (the moon? Mr. Halloween's House? the convenience store across town?) and that flying part is gonna be the core of the game experience, and then Wendy will finally reach her destination and there'll be some more dialogue and it'll be a neat little ending. Not a long game overall, most likely, though I'd like for it to be a bit longer than my game Goobey and The Pizza Quest (that game is 10-15 minutes, so having this game be 25-30 minutes would be nice), since I'd like to challenge myself to make a longer game while still keeping it interesting.

So yeah that's all for today thanks for reading dawg.

DAY 7

I was very tired and busy today.

HOWEVER I forced myself to make this fine pumpkin boi here he is

He is a fine young man and he will be in my video game.

DAY 8

Today was a Friday, and I don’t do work on Fridays. 
HOWEVER this is a game jam which is fun and not work so I did some stuff for it.

I’ve been feeling pretty idea-bankrupt while making this game; while working on implementing the basic systems and aesthetics of the game for the past 7 days the Idea Librarian in my brain has been scratching the bottom of the Idea Barrel with a machete looking for game mechanics and levels to throw into the pipeline, but, scratch as they may, they haven’t come up with anything.

UNTIL NOW.

Today I sat down for a solid 40 somethin minutes and dunked into my Idea Ritual, i.e. slam jamming random thoughts into my notebook until one of them strikes me as being particularly interesting. I found that idea about halfway through my Ritual, and I spent the rest of that time expanding on it. So NOW I do believe I have a solid and doable idea to try and make reality within this here video game. I won’t spoil it here though, because I’m tired of typing right now. And thus I conclude today’s progress thank you thank you I’ll be here all week.

DAY 9

You gon be reading this a lot on this here development log, however I was very busy with class stuff today and had little time to dedicate to this, again. But ey it's all about just making some sort of progress ain't that right Paulie? So today I just made Wendy hover up and down slightly while riding her broom, in addition to fixing a few animation related things. ALSO I have begun implementation of NPCs and dialogue, so that will be cool. Aight talk to you later website.

Big fan of the dialogue feature

DAY 11

Just worked more on dialogue today, now it'll stop all player input besides the E key (used to advance dialogue) and you can press E to advance to each new line of dialogue; once you reach the last line, pressing E will remove the dialogue box and restore player input. 

I still want to be able to have the dialogue set up like a conversation where it'll show one character talking (with their own name displayed, and maybe a picture of their face?), and then the other character might have a line after that (which would then switch the displayed name and the character's face portrait). I also want there to be multiple possible conversations per character, like having a different conversation with them both before and after you retrieve an item for them, for example. Feelin pretty good with today's progress, while simultaneously feeling that I won't have this game done by the end of the month, mostly due to school obligations (though maybe my submission for the jam could be a demo of the game or something woahh it'd feel really official and cool to put out A Real Game Demo.)

DAY 12

I am once again here to tell you I was busy. I really shouldn't say that to be honest cuz like this jam's supposed to be about at least doing something every day, even if it isn't much. However I am the type of person who often manages to find an excuse to feel disappointed in myself for one reason or another, hence my constant busy-ness disclaimers. 

ANYWAY here's the first pass on the character Jackie (that is, just her head). She is a very cool and chill and snazzy person.

DAY 13

Here Jackie I'm tired bye.

(Update from the future) just realized her right arm is absurdly thin that will be fixed

DAY 14

Today I sat down and considered the project as a whole; I thought about what my ultimate goal is, how the design of the game is working out right now, and if there are any big changes I want to make. I think I’ve re-shaped my own perspective on this game a good bit, and I think there are a few reasonably big things I’d like to change about it, mostly in terms of scope reduction. I realized that at some point in the past week or so I started thinking of this game as some kinda important project which I must execute and design exquisitely so as to turn it into a “portfolio piece” or something like that, but really it’s just a game jam game that I’d rather make to just have some fun seeing what I can do, and to create a nice little world that’s fun to play around in for a few minutes. I’m a big fan of Worm Club’s games, and among other reasons I think it’s because their games are just like these cute play box things where you go in and be like ohohoooo funnyyyy thingy aha funny dialogue ooooo jazz music oh wonderful pleasant graphics aha I am the Frog Detective mhm magnifying glass aha yes that is a clue if I do say so myself. Their games are very “softly” designed if that makes any sense. I kinda want this game to be something like that basically.

This also means I’m considering switching to Unity. I like Unreal and I’d make everything in it if I could, but the facta da matta is it just can’t do 2D very well. This is (probably) fine because 1) even if an engine switch causes the game to not be done by the end of the month I’m fine with that, because I figure it wouldn’t have been finished anyway given my busy schedule as a *shudder* college student, and 2) I think I can make the game better and quicker in Unity. 

So yeah some good utilization of the old macaroni brain was done today and I’m feeling better about the game now. Buh bye bubby

DAY 15

Started rebuilding the game in Unity. Lol that's it aight see ya later.

DAY 16

Today I fixed up part of my desk and installed a new SSD in my computer, because having an optimal workspace is necessary for making good game jam games. I also realized everything I said about remaking the game in Unity was stupid, and I will return to the Unreal version of the game from tomorrow onwards.

DAY 17

Today I cleaned up Jackie's sprite. This is probably the final version of it. (decided the arms looked fine)

I ALSO did some more thinking about the project (how unexpected) (also I promise I'll get to actual in-engine progress with programming and all that stuff soon, just these past few days have been a real bruh moment). I think that this particular game concept is cool; however, try as I may I can't seem to come up with anything I could put into it to make it really cool and really interesting. I can only conceive of it as being "kind of neat," and I think that's why I've appeared pretty conflicted in these daily posts in terms of what exactly this game will be like. So I've decided to just say screw it; I can't make this particular game at this particular point in time into some kind of excellent super cool amazing thing, and that's fine because not every game has to be like that. I will be employing the Derek Yu Method(TM), wherein I finish the game, and be glad that I finished another game, however good or bad it happens to be. So basically bada bing alright good night mwah.

Ngl, but I think this game has the best title ever, please don't change it!

DAY 18

Today I recuperated.

DAY 19

OKAY I have progressed. Today I fixed the animations (again) and just cleaned up a lot of my code so the game is a bit less buggy now. I recorded a gif but it was 193MB and the max is 3MB so uhhh nevermind.

DAY 20 (just realized this said Day 22 so I changed it, I think I was tired lol)

I fixed a few more movement-related bugs AND implemented Pumpkin Boi (that's his official name). Pumpkin Boi is the pickup you collect so you can keep Broom Hopping (TM).

DAY 21

Made some pretty good progress today. I sat down and I was like alright it's time to be makin some hard and fast decisions about this game, so I was like you know what the skybox I made looks super cool let's just make that the whole entire background (and I don't wanna lay out and design like a suburban street place thing), so bada bing now the game is in the cosmic realm or something (there will be an explanation in-game for why it looks like this) and it looks pretty and I think there will still be some kind of object behind our beloved main character at the beginning, won't be this placeholder house thing though. I'm also probably gonna change the main character's name, though saying why would probably spoil future games I want to make. Anyway we got our Main Witch and her best friend JACKIE who just chills and stands there. You'll be able to have a very cool and insightful and life-changing conversation with her it'll be wild. 

Also this whole cosmic realm thing means the game has taken on a more open ended structure now, where the whole thing is just this one big level where you can fly to every corner of it. I originally envisioned the game as a linear thing, but I like this structure better since it's just easier to conceive considering how the flying mechanic works, and it makes sense since it's in the cosmic realm. 

I ALSO made this really cool effect where, when you get on your broom, the camera FOV increases so you can see more of the screen, which will be important for seeing items and stuff. When you get off your broom the FOV zooms back in.

I'm feeling a bit more excited than before now, since I feel like I have a decent grasp of what the game as a whole will look like once it's done. Here's a tip whenever you make a change (or series of changes) to your game and test it and you feel a big smile blast across your face that's when you know you're starting to enter The Gucci Zone. Anyway here's to the next 8 days yall we gon make game.

DAY 22

Sat down this morning and got some decent work in, just wanted to make a few quick improvements cuz later today I gotta go nae nae on somethin else. SO I got some sound effects in the game, and I've got a few music tracks I like, still choosing between those. I fixed another bug with the flying, AND I gave our Main Witch the ability to FACE LEFT while walking. She can face left and right while flying, just not while walking. I also made an idle and a walk animation for her, so she stands still when not moving and starts animating when she walks left or right.

(pictured above: a whole 10 seconds of work in Photoshop)

DAY 23

Wrote the whole first conversation that our Main Witch has with Jackie at the beginning of the game. I think it's pretty entertaining, probably.  Hopefully it does a decent job of characterizing them and of introducing the idea of the game.

DAY 24

Didn't have a ton of time today, on top of being really busy, but I did do a bit of work on the game's level with item / obstacle placements and stuff. I also fixed a sound effect related bug and I re-read the conversation I wrote, which I will let marinate in my brain a while longer  until I'm ready to make changes to improve it.

DAY 25

Focused on making the game look prettier today, because I want it to look good AND because I wanted some inspiration for how exactly I should actually build out the level based on the assets I could find, and I gotta say I think I found some pretty good assets boyo.

I'm building the game out these last few days of the jam while constantly being aware of the fact that, as I mentioned before, I can only really conceive of the game as being "kinda neat" instead of a super dope woah crazy game wow that's such a cool novel game that you just made in this game jam wow woah woohoo, but ay for whatever I'm unable to do through gameplay, I can try to do through visuals and sounds. They are called video games after all. I just want it to be something I'm proud of in one way or another.

DAY 26

Oh baby I had a solid hour and a half today and I was like bada bing here we go and I got the dialogue system to look just about the way I want it to. There's still one bug that lets the player press the Talk button while text is printing out which causes the whole sentence to restart, but besides that it's looking quite nice.

DAY 27

Ayyyy today I fixed that dialogue bug that was bugging me (LAUGH HERE) and I've continued work on the level. I got at least one kinda neat thing in here; the items you need (for a currently unspecified reason I don't spoil games not even my own) will move around in certain patterns which will make them a bit tougher, and hopefully more amusing, to collect. I also have completed the "Key Art" for this game (not really the box art, it's like the logo art type thing that'll represent it on itch.io). I must say I think it looks pretty cool, then again I am not a good artist but then again it looks pretty cool.

Pictured above: Our Main Witch Holly tries to snag a pesky floating energy drink out of the foreground.

DAY 28

Today I sat down and tried to do some things which didn't work and I was like okay I guess I'll just do this in a less interesting way and it'll be done quicker whatever, and then I did it. THEN I realized the jam submission deadline is tomorrow at 5:00pm, rather than on Saturday like I thought and I was like wow dope cool, then I did a bunch of good work really fast and then my unreal crashed and then I was like wow dope cool, and then I redid all of it. 

So now I think the game is kinda close to being done maybe, stay tuned for tomorrow.

ZOOM