Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game and then return to leave feedback. You're right about the punch anmation, it certainly could do with a little more erm.... punch. At the time of submitting the game, I was happy to just use the animations that came with the models and even happier that it worked at all. But going forward from here, when my RL calms down, I'll definitely add "review animations" to the wish list.
I'm not new to programming, or trying to keep to a deadline, but I am a right old noob as a game dev. I only had two finished games to my name when I entered the jam and one of those was from the Discovering Godot course. I had to finish up the course and pick some lectures out of the next Godot course before I could even begin.
I learned about grid maps, navmesh, how to export blend files to GLTF and import that into Godot. I learned how to have my character be able to shoot or punch her enemies, while the enemies could only chase the character and beat her up, and only then if they could get close enough. I reaquainted myself with the MoSCoW rules and applied them ruthlessly to all my big ideas for my game and applied them again ever more ruthlessly as time ebbed away.
But my favourite learning experience of the month was when I finally figured out why my zombies repeatedly fell on their faces and laid stuck upon the ground when they were supposed to turn toward, and race off after the player character. For ages I was certain that it was because I had the models set too low and their feet were in the floor. I was convinced that they were sort of tripping themselves up. This theory was supported by the fact that if I adjusted the physics for the model they no longer fell over. Little did I realise that the reason they didn't fall over was because I approached them from a different direction after modifying them.
When I finally tumbled that the problem was not about their feet being stuck in the floor, I found a message in the console that said
"Up vector and direction between node origin and target are aligned, look_at() failed"
When I debugged what the zombies were doing, their transformations and so on, they were never trying to turn to the UP vector. They were often close to it, but it was never the same. But, if I took the absolute value of the vector and rounded it, I could see where it then became the same as the UP vector. The solution was then simple, write a method to compare the absed and rounded lookat vector to UP and only turn if they didn't match. I guess I'm a bit of a nerd. I get a kick out of chasing down and beating problems like that.
Anyway,, what I think I am finally getting round to saying, is I also learned what FUN it is to take part in a game jam. I might not enjoy the pressure of a short jam, I'm not yet good enough to get much done in a week, much less three days or something. But having a month and working on my plan every day, I had a ball :c)
Thank you @Rompkins for this topic. I hope I didn't go banging on too long. Thanks also @Yang Pulse for hosting the jam!
Thanks for taking the time to try out my game and for coming to leave some feedback :c)
I think there is definitely an issue where the zombies can get stuck in the gaps behind the table when you jump onto it and they are trying to get to you. I am hoping to address this in the next day or so, but my RL responsibilities have to take precendence.
I'm sorry to say that I couldn't get anywhere in the survival or escape modes, but I did make it to the chopper a few times. I liked how the horde thinned out as the player dodged around the vehicles and obstacles. Also, I also laughed aloud when I finally twigged what you're supposed to do in the headgame. Very silly, but funny too :c)
Thanks for organising and running the game jam Yang. I had a great time working on my game and looking at the other entries, and learned a lot into the bargain. Very much looking forward to next time!
I see in the guidelines that we can submit an update with bug fixes after the submissions have closed.
I have uploaded a new version onto itch.io, but my source is on dropbox. The file name contains the date and version number, so the link on the submission page for my game now points to the wrong file. Is there a way to change the source URL that I provided when I made my submission to the jam? I can't see where I might do that. Am I being dim and missing something obvious?
Great concept! Between trying not to fall off the platforms and trying to remember which route the former incarnations of my player had taken, I could be there all day. Probably longer ;c)
