Day 7 Progress, AKA "Guys It's Pretty Much Done":
Hey again! I know, I know, I skipped yesterday's devlog. I could tell I needed a break and decided to not work on anything dev-related for a day and spend some time with family instead. I really think I have something in me that pushes a ton harder after I take a break, because guys, I went super hard tonight and I think the games pretty much done. Like, save for a few extra tweaks and details that are suuuper minor, its all done. I am so hyped up about this, I can't even explain it. I learned a LOT in this process, and the game I'm gonna put out for this jam is something I am literally having a blast playtesting, which is so new for me. I GET A LITTLE JUMPY AT MY OWN GAME GUYS. NOT TO HYPE IT UP TOO MUCH BUT, THATS KINDA COOL.
To summarize the boatload of things I got done tonight:
- I still wasn't satisfied with the main menu, so I changed it again and I finally love it now haha! It's super simple: just a spinning tennis ball on a sky blue background.
Something about the texture being super detailed makes me love how this looks, idk why!
- I made the death screen, which came out looking super Tarantino-influenced for some reason haha. I wanted to convey the idea that you've just been axe murdered, but I also wanted to keep in mind that the lead character of this game is a sweet harmless lil dog. Having a ridiculous ultra violent death screen would feel cheap to me, like I'm just trying to shock the player (and shock value is the cheapest way to get scares). So I went with a more stylistic route! Here's what it looks like:
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I thought "Bad Dog" would be weird and funny. Like I'm scolding you for losing lol.
- I added a timer!!! A TIMER. This is by far what I was most excited about implementing. I know for a lot of the more experienced devs out there this is probably the easiest thing to add haha but, as I've mentioned previously, my games have always been more focused on getting across a feeling than actually being "game"-y. I haven't even felt comfortable calling some of them games, instead referring to them as "experiences" or whatever haha. So I was super excited for the opportunity to finally make a game with some replay value, a game that actually challenges the player to get better and faster. It also adds more stakes when the enemy starts chasing you. You want to escape the enemy but you also wanna beat your high score (and dying makes you start all over which is fun and frustrating haha!) This is what it looks like:
It only starts up once you reach the beginning of the maze and ends when you reach the house again. The really cool part is that when you reach the house the timer stops and the numbers turn red, which looks so sick. I wish I could show you guys but, funny story, I'm actually bad at my own game. I can get through the maze really well at first because I've playtested that stretch a million times, but going back through the maze is super tough for me for some reason. Which makes me really excited, in a weird way. My first game-y game might actually also be kinda hard. I love it.
One of my biggest challenges tonight, believe it or not, was working with collisions and my 2D sprite. I used a very very basic script for allowing the enemy to follow the player and that brought up some challenges when coding collisions, so that ate up a lot of time. This game has made me learn a lot about colliders. I thought I knew all I had to know but somehow I've been using collider triggers this whole time without realizing that you can reference a specific collider by name or by tag when you need to. IT SEEMS SO OBVIOUS IN HINDSIGHT. 🙄
Anyways. I'm exhausted. This has been such a fun game jam and I'm honestly so excited to put the last few tiny finishing touches on this game. I'm sure this won't be my last devlog post, though, so I'll see you guys tomorrow! As always, thanks for reading, everyone. Happy jamming!