In order for this to be a proper dev log, I need to somehow catch up, as it is already day 4.
The technical stack is Unity 6. I had to quickly get to know a couple of new things there, like the new input system and tilemaps. I also wanted to use as much of Unity ECS as possible. I ended up reinventing things anyway and reusing some old elements, like Dijkstra maps, and the code is becoming more and more stitched-cadaver-like.
Last year, I bought a Wacom tablet, so drawing sprites is now way faster than anything I could do with pixel art. I’m using Krita with a 4-pixel-wide brush, no anti-aliasing, and flat color fills.
Game setting and plot were a second priority, but shortly before the start of the jam, I came up with the idea that some of my previous 7DRL entries (Force of Nature, Catalot, Fairy Princess) share the same universe. So, I decided to make an "all-stars" kind of game in a silly fantasy style to better align with my silly stick-figure drawings.
Day 1 was about groundwork and UI. I usually implement UI elements like menus and "how to play" sections first, just to get them out of the way.
Day 2 was about the mob controller, which included player movement and rudimentary AI for mobs. I also started on the "skill engine," which in theory should allow me to quickly create many abilities and items.
Day 3 was about the town that the player can visit between levels to buy and sell skills. The amount of time I had to spend on the merchant UI was absolutely out of control. This whole thing should have been thoroughly planned way in advance. I will probably scrap it later or remake it completely.
