Hello, World!

My name is Ilia. This Game Jam is going to be something like a challenge for me. And my driving force will be a reflection on recent period of time in my life.

Preamble

Well, in short, I’ll be 25 years old and I still don’t have a degree. I quit my university, when it was my final year, because I knew that I’m not going to be a customs declarant and I was already working with technology (mostly with back-end). So, my dream was to move to Czech Republic and study there in Technical University.

For that I was working hard to save money for relocation, for annual language course (because study will be in Czech language) and so on. But because of COVID in the world I stuck on the final step of my plan - I’m still waiting if consul would approve my visa. So I am kind of locked in my country xD

Introduction

I’ve always wanted to express myself through the games, but I’ve been always putting it off. I have only a little experience with C# and some basics of Unity. Because before that I had to learn stuff that was relevant for my work, but not for games.

I’m really not in the mood recently, so after working and entrance exam preparation, I just waste my free time and surfing the web. But today I’ve accidentally came across this Game Jam. So I told myself, it’s now or never.

My goals

As I mentioned before, I have just a little experience, so my goals would be just mundane.

• Create something playable, with focus on mobile
• Be more confident with basic concepts
• Try to gather my thoughts into something to show it in the game (as much as I can, but without any expectations)
• Figure out how to be better with time-managment (btw, that’s why I like Game Jam - there is a dead-line)

Conclusion

You can say, that there isn’t yet any certainty about the game or, at least, about the concept of game. You’ll be right.

I need this post only for 2 things:

1. I had to write something, because without it I could just leave this Game Jam. But now I will have to finish it.
2. I’d like to read if someone will share some thoughts or advices about any stuff.

P.S. I suppose new goals or information will soon appear when I start.

ahhh wow this is definitely a very personal take on the theme. i'm really curious to see where you'll go with it!

I can definitely relate to being stuck in a web surfing loop. I wish you the best of luck with this project!

11.01.2020

First of all, a started looking for some assets before thinking about main storyline. I have found some free assets and also bought some on Humble Bundle.

The plot is going to be short, but with small plot twist. The action takes place in fantasy. It’s going to be 2D platformer. There will be three small locations. But because I gathered assets from different places, I have no idea how to connect them pretty nice. Right now it seems that there would be rough connection between them.

Because of game’s setting there would be pretty dark. And I have to learn how to effectively deal with lights. I’m not sure if I should start learning how to create normals for tiles, it seems like it would take huge amount of time for me. But I love to see how tiles with normals look with dynamic lights. I’ll save this tasks for the future.

Also I have to learn how to handle with dialogue system in Unity. Because I’m writing plot in my native language I have to learn how to work with translations in game. Firstly, there would be only two languages (Russian and English), but after Game Jam, I’m going to add also Czech language.

I’m not sure if I should pay attention to the sound/music in game right now. So, I wanted to leave it to the middle of development road. Btw, if you still reading these text, could you, please, share with me, when do you usually start working with sounds/music?

In progress:

• Sketching out the plot
• Starting building first location with basic controls 
• Setting up animations for main character and first NPC

To do:

• Find out how to handle with camera
• Learn more about lights and optimization
• Learn more about dialogue system in Unity
• Thinking about how would be better to connect different locations
• Make up what player would be doing on each location

ohhh creating normals can be pretty tricky--if youre feeling adventurous one possible solution may be to find a grayscale map > normal map program (i think xnormal was an old one) and see if the results of that work. at worst, drawing them by hand is possible, but i probably wouldn't recommend it unless your tiles are simple + you have time to iterate and make sure the colors and vectors are correct. 

personally i start to work with audio depending on the type of project--for text games i might not really think of it until the end, for VNs i try to have in mind the kinds of tracks or sfx we might like toward the middle of development, but for 3D games i find sometimes it's pretty important to immersing a player in a world and testing pretty early on. honestly this isn't best practice haha but i've sometimes considered audio a reach goal for a jam game, but for other projects i think it can help to look into it sooner than later.

I couldn't handle with time limit.
Also, I was trying to cut off some stuff from the game, when I realized that I don't have time for it. Like for example one location, some activities, and story was huge decreased.

Anyway, I'm happy, that I learnt huge amount of informations when I was trying to handle with errors. And after that I want to try to return some ideas to polish it and complete the game as I wanted at the begging. 

https://itch.io/embed/893090

Also I want to work with assets and change some of them and else I have to learn how to work with translations.
But unfortunally, I could find solution for that moment: I was trying to put invisivle wall to cut location that wasn't done. And when player touches it, there is somekind of glitch (or how should I name it?).