itch.io

Hey Sebasfrdly, YESS I'm also super excited to publish the game and see where it goes!

What you mentioned about the 80% of work done in the last 20% of the project is SOO TRUEE, and because of that it was exceptionally amazing to see everything come together and work out. Our team's efforts to make Kalidax into the polished state as it currently is has been tremendous and we can definitely learn from the development during our post mortem!

Hello Nick, it's great to hear that you and your team are planning on developing the game a bit further and aim to upload it on steam! That would be incredible like you mentioned for publishers, however I also agree when you mention it wouldn't hurt to publish on itch.io as well. Popular games like Celest are on both so it definitely won't hurt the reputation, it'll only add to your userbase! I'm super excited to see the final product up on these sites!

Hey Diabb, congratulations with the completed game! It looks incredible seeing all the art come together, and when I heard the game was over (was it) 150 pages!? LIKE THAT'S CRAZYY! The entire mechanic of creating articles based on the people's stories and then at the end being the bad guy was a super creative way to tie in your theme.

I also absolutely love this itch.io page, it fits the theme of the game perfectly.

You share some incredible insights to the development of your project! The idea of storing the story flags discovered sounds like a genius idea to determine which articles should spawn in. The entire system seems very organized!

I also ran into the problem of storing data between scenes in our game and also used Scriptable Objects in a very weird way. Ture heroes. 

Also, a neat thing you can do with Scriptable Objects is use them as the middle object with Unity Events! When something happens like the player drags in an image in the newspaper, it will invoke a Unity Event inside the scriptable Object. And then another object in the scene can listen to when that event in the scriptable object is called and run a method if it is! It's a great way to remove dependencies in your scene objects.

Hey David! This is a great reflection into the work that has been done thus far, and I'm excited to play your group's game in 2 weeks! That's an interesting piece of feedback about the robot having to be in front of the rails. If the speed of the conveyor belts increases as time goes on, it might also be frustrating if players will have to wait for the robot to catch up in order to grab items. Not sure how your group will think about implementing that but it's something to think about! That's also great that you're helping out where possible with the tutorial, as an only programmer it must be a lot of work so getting assistance is the best to have.

It's interesting to hear all the troubles with the textures and git pulls, and like you mentioned it's a great experience to learn from in case it happens in future projects. I can't wait to see how your game ends up looking! The animation looks awesome and I'm excited to see the other one created for the intro/ending.

Blubber hard-carrying with the icy conditions ngl, but restricting movement is a pretty big tradeoff. 

Great post Janna! It's cool how you were able to step outside of your comfort zone and do some dialogue, adapting to the team's needs. That's an incredible skill to have in the indie scene and so far it's looking great with the Walrus tweets. As an introvert #14 hits hard #noiseaintit.

I'm interested to see what other kinds of animals you might have to research like the Walrus, it would be exciting to see this all play out in-game!

Hey Ethan! 

I love the screenshots provided along with the dev log, it helps visualize what you're talking about. It's also incredible how almost your entire game is UI-based, as they interact with tabs and customers on social media. It's a great experience for UI programming with Godot!

Also, as a programmer, I empathize with your mention of not being able to get the desired content into the game and the entire team having to accept that as a result. Based on all the features you've implemented for Playtest 2, it seems that you were able to get a good sum of content that can be tested, so great job on that!

Thank you so much, that's incredible to hear!

Yes you're exactly right about the character's abilities :D

We planned to have the player exchange some abilities with the boss when they're defeated, however complications arose when programming the system and we decided it was best to remove it for the submission to mitigate the bugs. Currently it's not interactable and is just a visual, but in the next update we'll make sure it's implemented 👍

We're so glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
That's a great point, and it probably increases the difficulty of the fights. Keeping it to a static screen sounds like the better alternative, thank you for sharing your insights! 

We appreciate your feedback and 100% agree! 

There was unfortunately no time for polish making the game incredibly challenging (even as the designers we can barely beat it which is not great).

We'll definitely use these insights when making improvements to our game 👍

Thank you so much! Yes, that's a pesky bug we have to squash for sure🐛

You're right, this is most likely not allowed 😔

Unfortunately, we did not have time to replace our placeholder sounds with approved ones, so when the judging time is up we'll update them for the future! 

Thank you for playing our game (it's cool how you knew the sounds)!

Thank you for your feedback! Yes, the bug unfortunately makes the game much harder, and knowing that we will try to fix it for future updates 👍

Hey Amy!

I totally agree with the playtests being a bit too early into the semester, it might not be an issue with our teams as we started development earlier than intended, but for teams that stuck to a schedule that aligns with this class it could be cutting it close. I've heard this advice from a professor, but sometimes it's not great to spend all the time in pre-production just focusing on the design documents and is actually better to kick off a prototype once you have a decent idea of what your game is. This way you can see early on if the game is fun and make changes to the design when it's still cheap and quick to do so. If you just focus on design first and spend a whole year in this phase, once you begin to develop the game you may find out that the base of what the game is just isn't engaging and might have to redo a lot of progress which will set back the team. Coming back to the main point, it's great that our teams began development on the game earlier since we could get ahead and can test to see if the core gameplay loop is interesting!

It was awesome to see your dialogue system implemented in the game too, super cool to hear it's working well with the NPCs : )

Hello Todd!

It is very satisfying laying out all the work that you have completed, and works in progress as a sort of task list since it shows progress in a great direction! The proof of concept looked incredible with power point and I can't wait to see how that will translate in-game. Also, I like how you are taking into consideration any unanticipated issues that may arise in the schedule since there's always something that comes up! It's better to be prepared than not and it sounds like your group has it figured out with the scheduling of tasks.

Hey David!

I really like how you acknowledge there is more you can do to help your team and have decided to familiarize yourself of the engine and software used to do so! That's a great way to prepare for the next semester where a lot of it will be developing the game. The narrative will come eventually so now it's best to aid your team in any way possible, that's some great team spirit! I'm excited to see what your group conjures for next sem!

Hey Amy!

It seems like you and your team have found out the optimal workflow and can now sail right into the development stage! I do agree that having meetings outside our usual class time helps tremendously in making sure everyone has completed their assigned tasks or know what they should be working on. Communication is one of the most important team dynamic and your group seems on top of it with the many places to talk! I'm excited to see what you all come up with for next semester.

Hey Grace! Incredible analysis on scheduling and on the devlogs lol. I do agree that it's very difficult to execute work when there's no near deadline, hence the procrastination. Only when an assignment is due soon do I really get pressured to start working on it, and sometimes that work is better than what would have been produced if worked on sooner!

Hello Hejie, this is a great insight into your current progress! Yes as AI grows its ethics become debatable, it will be interesting to see how your group handles conveying the message across to the players. It's also a good sign that you understand that your scheduling often causes you to forget what to work on and how you plan to solve the issue with sticky notes! Just understanding the problem alone is hard for many people, so this is a great first step.

Hey Janna, that's great how your group got a method going for scheduling meetings! As you mentioned, it's great if all members of the group can make it to at least one meeting so everyone can stay on the same page and share a mental model of the game's design. I also really like your way of working on tasks, writing them down in order of priority and doing them one at a time. I work the same way and find it helps with lowering procrastination since you always know what to work on next instead of not knowing what to do.

No worries at all! My day is going great, thank you :) 

I've recently updated the game with the new system and would love to know if it's still not working on your end. Hope you have a nice day/ weekend!

Hey Kalen! I do like the idea of merging together some ideas since there's some overlap, this way the whole team has something they're passionate about working on in the project! It will be interesting to see the narrative and gameplay elements come together in this game, I'm looking forward to hearing more about it :)

Hey Keanichii! That's some great reflection- spending too much time on the concept and not enough time preparing on how to present that concept is tough to balance. I made a similar mistake of not spending enough time preparing for the presentation, which led to the listeners not being able to share the same vision as the creator :(

It's nice that your group decided to give everyone a second opportunity to pitch your game ideas to each other, and even if your concept didn't get chosen you can always take some ideas from it and merge them into the chosen game! 

Hey Hejie! I like the game concept about controlling AI robots, especially in an overcooked setting (That game was suuuper stressful and I think you can convey the stress of AI quite simply through the gameplay). What I would consider is how you can make the robot feel like a robot and not a human with their stress levels. If the game's focus is on the ethics of AI work, maybe the player doesn't have to slow down if their stress levels are too high but if so, then the robot will go out of control. Great concept and I'm intrigued to see where this goes in the future!

First aid is a branch of health care I wouldn't have even thought of, but it's so crucial on an individual level for people to be familiar with and understand. I appreciate the information you present to us in this post, especially how if anyone tries to help out they are protected under the Good Samaritan laws in Canada, but if the other person refuses to help, than you can't force it on them. I did not know this fact until now and as someone who might think of the risks if someone is in need of help ("what if I break their ribs or accidentally cause them harm in some way"), it is reassuring and gives more confidence to provide help if needed. A game that teaches us these concepts in an easily digestible way would be phenomenal for anybody, my guess is a web-based game for the most accessibility.

Social media is so defined in our daily lives, it's great to research the negative aspects as well as the positive ones you mentioned. The last finding especially stood out to me since this is a time where any company, and individual person, and promote their products to essentially anyone (and can even target ads to people that fit their target audience). Modern Marketing is all about hooking people instantly with a product/ service, else they will skip the ad or scroll to the next video. Going off of that, it's great to see that your design idea will also focus on that aspect of social media and seeing it from the opposite side of a consumer (which is most of us). 

This is a great topic to research, especially the biodiversity aspect of climate change and how you can take the research and put it into and introduce it to players through a game. This is the first time I'm hearing about the ocean acidification and the carbon emissions sinking into the ocean, this realization of climate change's current effects is crucial for more people to discover and start caring about. As a player I would love to learn of different actionable steps I can take individually to help protect the animals from climate change!

hmm, that's interesting. I will have to update this version of the game with an improved input system (I've already made), or provide a download link. Thank you for letting me know!

yup! Actually I re-created the King Dedede Boss Fight from superstar ultra recently. I'm gonna give Whispy Woods a re-visit soon probably

Thanks! Maybe that will be the next boss re-created 👀

Should be simpler to accomplish since I have the base behaviour down

Great job on Fiish!! The concept and execution of reversed roles here is very creative! Also I do enjoy the black outline on the fiish to make it appear more 2D, very well done on the visuals! I was a bit confused at first with the camera's controls and game over screen, but for only 48 hours the work is AWESOME! Also for a game with lots of mouse movement, it may be best to lock the cursor and hide it during gameplay since when I played it was going to my other monitors LOL.

I love the intense music when you latch onto a bait as it made the situation tense, and regarding how that is the main mechanic of the game, adding this flare was a great addition! 

The puzzle design in each level is great! I especially enjoy how with many levels the blocks are aligned to give you a safety net and observe how the level works before executing any moves. Once you feel the level's rhythm it starts to catch on, and with the mechanic of swapping blocks around, we have the freedom to complete the puzzle in our own ways!

This reminds me so much of the games I used to play in elementary school, like the math games on the computers. The art, animations, menu screen, and audio, the presentation is great!

This was a very enjoyable experience! There's something oddly satisfying about perfectly jumping over the grim reapers or perfectly jumping to reach a very high coin. My highest score was around 220 m, and all items unlocked :)

This is incredible! I love the progression with the different dragon heads. The art style is also really unique with the 2D backgrounds and characters but 3D dragon. It is fun just moving the dragon around and the concept is very simple to grasp yet very addicting! Well done

Day 1-3 (Monday - Wednesday)

Progress has been slow because I've been following a tutorial but it's for 2D while I am combining 2D and 3D spaces, meaning I can't use the same raycast2D and 2D collision detection. I had to rework a lot of my old code to get it functional, but now jumping actually detects ground compared to before.

Visually there is not much to show, only fixing the many bugs that I encountered. I am behind schedule and will try doing much more in the next few days.

Welcome!

Hello everyone, welcome to my devlogs! I'll be documenting the development of a game I worked on long ago but haven't had the time to continue due to school. Now that I'm on my reading week I hope to finish as much as possible within 5 days. The game's name is BreezeRun!

This is my first #devtober so I'm excited to try and push myself towards a more refined prototype of the project.

I've participated in a few other game jams before and have some experience in art and programming. I like Nintendo games, A Hat In Time, and fantasy aspects seen in games like LOZ.

What is BreezeRun?

BreezeRun is a 2.5D Endless Runner where the player controls an elemental robot who is able to switch between fire and water. With this mechanic players can get past elemental obstacles. 

Fire can't go through fire (Solid objects) but can evaporate water and go through it.

Water can't go through water but can extinguish the fire and go through it.

That is the essence of the mechanic. It does sound complex and I do get that it may lead to unnecessary confusion like "Why can't I go through an obstacle if I'm the same element as it?" If you have any suggestions on potential alternatives let me know!

Gameplay

LMB - Switch elements

Space Bar - Jump

All the animations and objects in the scene are temporary and will get replaced in the future. (Sorry for the small sized gif!)

Week Schedule

Here is what I hope to achieve every day by Friday (It's Sunday night as I write this)

Sunday - Design how the Procedural Generation will work (Different islands with preset obstacles?)

Monday - Program basics of procedural generation

Tuesday - Make islands spawn further away and move quicker as time progresses. Maybe slowly make camera zoom out based on distance?

Wednesday - 3D model 3 houses/buildings (maybe just 2 for now) and make clouds with Strings attached to the sky

Thursday - Make some islands attached with vine bridge. Fire will burn them but staying as water won't.

Friday - Rework the character's animations, Implement a high score tracker and a death screen

I'll try to follow this schedule to the best of my ability, and may even add more necessary features. I'd like to prioritize functionality over aesthetics so I'm not too worried about not getting the art done.

That's a good idea, maybe like the double whispy woods! Some time over the summer I'll definitely try it out :D

I'm glad you liked it!