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 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 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
