Day 23:

Since the day was really exhausting for me today, I just sat down and fixed the mentioned bugs above and a bit more:

• circles in the upgrade gui are now clickable in the whole circle & not anymore the half :D
• "cursor somehow not in place" fixed itself, because of the fixed one before :D
• added better display of the free lanes in the pathswitcher (debug only)
• better handling of the selected "buildable place"

I also decided to move the work of the menu to another day so I can't just only start the work on it.

Day 24 ToDo:

• improve wave-system

Day 24:

Today I improved the wave system! \o/ So far it was only possible to create waves by ONE enemy and their amount. So for the new system I created some more enemy prototypes for testing purposes, which are currently just copies from the original one.

Then I thought which will be the best way to handle the new waves, so I also thought about a new data structure for it, so I came up with something pretty neat.

Now it's possible to create custom wave lengths with different enemies & different amounts:

Also in the data structure I reserved a part for a time which will count down for the enemies to begin spawning.

Last but not least I also created a function to check for the integrity of the data structure, which can be used to external file reading custom waves at some point later, maybe.

Day 25 ToDo:

Improve wave-system #2

• handle more waves
• implement time value
• call waves early

Day 25:

Handling of multiple waves is now working great. What isn't working is the implementation of the time value, somehow I messed up the timer maybe, also this one is triggering when he shouldn't. Was working on it for hours but couldn't find the bug. Maybe tomorrow...

Day 26 ToDo:

• bug hunting in timer & time implementation in spawner

Day 26:

Since I was really annoyed yesterday evening because of all the things with the timer and other stuff, I was debugging the spawner & timers a lot today in the morning to see what is triggering at which time and which variables are changing. And voila... things became more obvious in the morning.

Because of that I successfully implemented in the evening the timer & time values but also the feature to call waves early which wasn't really on my list for today, but it was really easy :O

Thus I am more than enthusiastic about what I have achieved today:

Maybe at some point I have to work on both things again, but this is another task on another day far, far away...

Day 27 ToDo:

After this really successful day 26, I'll take day 27 off to gain more power and strength :O

Day 27:

This is not the devlog you're looking for.
Move along...
Move along...

Today at my day off I was really lazy, I have not even thought about my tomorrows task.

Day 28 ToDo:

Let it be be a surprise for you and me what this day will bring. Usually I don't like working without a task and no plans, but yeah let's see.

Day 28:

Not this much to show today since I have not planned anything beforehand. Was thinking about tasks I could do, but took then the one from day 23 which was planned: The Menu!

So I thought about a data structure how to store all the data, how it should look like and which fonts to use. When it comes to the fonts I went with the Pixel Font ones by Chevy Ray, which are awesome! For the other two things? Be surprised! ;-)

So here the really basic menu as sneak peek:

Day 29 ToDo:

Sadly have to work again, so not THIS much time, but let's see how far I'll come with the menu.

Day 29:

Today I continued a bit the work on the menu in the early morning. Sadly I couldn't continue the work in the evening due to the current situation we are all in and an unexpected incident tomorrow in the morning. That's why I've to call it a day.

Day 30 ToDo (last day):

• Continue the tasks which I wanted to do today
• write the post mortem

Day 30 1/2: (last day)

Today I continued to work on yesterdays task:

I added nothing special to the menu but a little gimmick which is a little guy taking a look at your menu selection and is commenting this one.

I think it's really fitting the game since you'll also find many more during the game.

Day 30 2/2: (last day)

Devtober ‘20 – Post Mortem

This year I really forced myself to do something from time to time due to the current situation we are all in and my stressful job.

State of the project:

During the past months the project hasn’t changed this much. Nevertheless some things have already existed: one enemy, spawner, goal, pathing and a tower. You think that’s all you need for a tower defence game? You may be right, but there are much more things which need to be added since in the project no music & no real sprites were found. Also the gameplay was really simple at the moment.

What went wrong?

Like last years devtober not this much, but somehow I made the same “mistakes” in this year too. Yeah you see right: I set mistakes in quotation marks. Because I was using again new programs which I have not used before, be it in composing, when creating the tile sheets or something else. Sure, it’s a good move because you learn something, but I also think: I could have done more by doing things which I already know.

What went right?

Already anticipated: In this one month I had achieved much more than in the many months before all together.

About the project:

I’ve now designed the first tower, sprites & textures exist. I also was working on the first two tracks. I also have an idea how the first set of towers should look like, but also a system how the player places these ones on the map, including a tower GUI & upgrade GUI.

In general:

I learnt a lot of stuff by using new programs which I have not used before. All in all I think everything went quite well.

What’s next?

I will continue to work on the project, maybe not every day due to my stressful job I have which became more stressful due to the current situation we are all in.

Anyway the project must grow! Grow much further! I will again plan structured days and small tasks which need to be done. Things have to be reworked, many new levels have to be created but also I still have to study a bit of history, since the game is epoch based.

At this time and year I won’t give an estimate since I know I will not stick to this one. But also because the work which has to be done is much.

In case you want to be up-to-date about the project you can follow me on twitter.

The End!