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Programming. Sticky

A topic by Codmen4000 created Mar 02, 2023 Views: 524 Replies: 109
Viewing posts 1 to 20 of 25 · Next page · Last page
Developer

Here you guys can ask about how I'm doing on the game.

Developer (2 edits)

Yesterday, I got the prototype for the email reading system, but it took so long that I only got part of it done. And about 3 days ago, I got the player moving and some other stuff done. I've been busy IRL, so I didn't work on it too much the past couple of days.

Developer

Nice that you got the email part "ready"! 

Developer

Thank you!

Developer

Okay, so Today I got the enemy patrol done and the Email system has been modified. I haven't been working on the game for a number of reasons I've been sick, and I work a lot around at home IRL, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.

Question just because I'm curious, what engine do you use? Depending on the answer I might have a suggestion 

Developer

I'm using Unity Game Engine.

Oh okay okay, I'm not sure how audio works in Unity I just know that there's a few tools that can help with both SFX and music but I'm not really that informed 

Developer (1 edit)

it's all good I don't know how it works either...wait that's bad isn't it. All jokes aside it seems relatively easy. I hope.

I know that there's a thing called Fmod for making the audio thing easier but not sure how it works

Developer

I've never heard of it. I'll look into that.

Sure, let us know what you find

Developer (2 edits)

*Announcement* 

I'm making a Beta for the game so you guys can test it. the Beta will only include a basic level maybe some computers and an enemy.

In other news I have added Post-Processing which are visual effects in unity. 

NOW IT REALLY LOOKS LIKE A HORROR GAME! 

I actually startled myself when play testing (Not like I jumped or anything, just a little spook)!

Developer

Cheers mate! :D

Developer (1 edit)

Ok I'm almost done with the Beta test, now when you play it you should know that I've been working on things that will not make an appearance in the Beta and I have only two models for the game: one made by our 3D modeler, and one made by me in Pro-builder so no player or enemy models. There is no sound except the theme music. Now I do have post processing which adds amazing shadows with little effort. With all this in mind don't get your hopes up visually or audible.

Aside from that, I finally "finished" the email system. I put quotations there because I think I'll overhaul it later on, but for now, it works quite well.

Developer

Finally DONE! Oh...That Feels good!

I just finished giving it a play through and its not to bad

Developer

really? I thought it was pretty bad. I don't know why but I was pretty stressed while making it. So, I don't think I'll make any more Demos for a while.

Developer

The next thing I'll do is add tasks. Like among us kind of.

Developer (1 edit)

So I changed the enemy. The way I was doing it in the Demo was flawed so it only worked less then half the time. It work before the Demo but the  enemy could see through walls (If you need to know: I used to use Vector3.Distance and In the Demo I was using Physics.Sherecast. I then used a super complicated system using Raycasts and rotations but it didn't work, so I'm going back to Vector3.Distance for now)

Developer (1 edit)

are you guys okay with me using AI to improve my  code? I was jacking around with AI and I asked it to improve my code cause I didn't think it would work. And it worked! I'll keep both versions of code until I get an answer.

If it's for the code I honestly don't have any problem with it, and it's your area so you can do whatever you think it's best.
I honestly only have problem with AI when it's related to all type of arts. But if it helps you to make something better or as a tool then go for it

Developer (2 edits)

In my opinion, programming is a form of art.

I think I'll have it help a little if what I'm doing is long or difficult. Other than that, I'll probably do it myself because no one is a true master of anything, especially when it comes to me and coding, so I think I'll try to learn more before my practice becomes useless. ):

I've tried programming before and yes, I guess it's a form of art, it does have it's charm and complexity so yeah sorry about that.

I see AI as a tool and if it helps you become better, while you keep practicing then it can be good 

Developer

It's all good! (:

Developer (1 edit)

So guys... I just learned that the biggest game jam in the world starts in one month (The GMTK game jam https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2023). I am going to take a break during that time. It's only 48 hours, and I thought that we could participate as a team. Just wanted to know. I appreciate your understanding. Thank you.

Edit: I've been looking at some assets on the Unity Asset Store, and WOW! There's some good stuff there. I have been using a model for the enemy (that doesn't fit at all) for a while now and now I have some sound effects that might make it into the finished product. I made sure to steer clear of music, and any models I use will be changed later unless our 3D modeler doesn't care about them. I'll message him momentarily.

I wish I could participate! Unfortunately I'm pretty busy at the moment with some important exams and work for this but if you´re entering best of lucks!

Developer

Thanks!

Developer (1 edit)

I know I've said this a million times, but I'm so close to releasing the next demo! Also I've started rewriting the code the AI gave me a while back, partly because it's just too complicated for the AI to edit anymore but mostly cause Currently I'm not the best unity developer (Shocking I know) and I want to improve at programming. So while I might use it in the future, I most likely will just use it when I'm completely out of my league.  

Developer

I have two big announcements:

  1. Our 3D modeler has not answered any of my recent messages. Though we have plenty of models for now so I don't want or need to let him go anytime soon.
  2. I have decided to start from scratch on  the project. The reason is that while trying to update the project, It basically exploded. It got so complicated that it I forgot what almost everything did and how they impacted each other. So I am going to recreate the project with foresight in mind. For clarification, I'm not starting from ground zero. I will use my old code as a blue print. Also I can improve the graphics if I recreate the project.

Just wanted to alert you all of the big decision. Now the old project might be salvageable if you guys think I should keep the old project. 

Excited for the future

codmen4000.

I think it´s good.
Sure, it´s a lot of work that you had already done but as you said, the blueprint is there so I think it will be even better

Developer

I don't really understand the inners of it all, it's like performing surgery  with my current education, but I understand that it may be a great decision! Keep up the good work, mate! You're doing great! :D

Developer

Ahoy! I first got my hands on the new beta now, gotta say I love it! It's truly amazing how much effort you put into it! I recorded my experience too, if you are interested I can post it here, but I just want to point out that there's a small typo in the settings menu, instead of saying 'difficutly', it says 'diffaculty', no pressure, just something I notcied, oh, and the automoton is nightmare-enduring, gave me the freaks, you don't want to kill me with a heart attack do you? :/ But in all seriousness it looks amazing Oh, and it may be because we have different sized monitors,  but what I presume to be the objective box appears near the middle of the screen, I have a huge monitor though, so it could be on me, and where is the key card btw? Anyway, great work! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Developer (2 edits)

Thank you,  I'd love to see your play through! The typo was almost intentional because, at the time, I thought I had to create another demo quickly. Afterward, I decided to extend the process of the demo cause it was quite broken. The funny part is that the difficulty doesn't do anything. But the volume does affect some sounds, and the FPS setting definitely does some stuff. Especially if you set it to 1 FPS, which I added as a joke.

Developer

Yeah, I noticed he difficulty was inchanging, and the 1 fps is just hilarious! XD I'll try to get my plauthrough posted here in later today!

Developer

okay, thank you!

Developer (1 edit)

So I just tried HDRP, which is unity's most intense and high-quality renderer. I tried it for 10 minutes and freaked out! I knew it would be hard, but holy cow! It took 20 minutes just to load the thing! *proceeds in calm voice* What I'm saying is I will continue in URP (the second best unity renderer and a  lot easier), and once I'm done with the build, I will continue in HDRP if I think I'm up for it.

Also the GMTK game jam starts tomorrow, by the time you read this it will probably today if it hasn't started already.

Developer (1 edit)

Oh, and you wanna participate in the game jam? :D

Developer

Yes. I've been waiting for a while now. I'm very excited!

Developer

So, it's The Alter Chronos Syndrome you wanna participate with? 

Developer

No, Cronos Syndrome was just a passion project. The game I'm using in the jam is called Big Boss Commute.

Developer

I have a question, should we make a Discord? It could be a little easier to communicate, just a thought. Oh, and the video can't be shared on Itch.io, I don't know why :(

Developer

could you send it to me on reddit?

Developer (1 edit)

Sure thing! Errr, what's your Reddit username?

Developer

Codmen4000

Developer

Right! Sending in a sec!

Developer

Tell me if it doesn't work or something.

Edit: You know what? Here's the link: (1) Codmen4000 (u/Codmen4000) - Reddit

Developer

Oh, I almost forgot! You never sent your play-through. If you don't want to, that's fine. I just wanted to know if you forgot.

Developer

Well, you can't really send videos on Reddit :/

Developer

About the video. If you have a YouTube account you could send it there, and set it to unlisted then send me the link.

Developer

I would highly enjoy to see your playthrough if you are comfortable sending it to me. If it's downloaded on your computer you could send it through dropbox or itch.io and I could download it. or if you have a youtube account you could send it there, unlist the video and send the link to me.

Developer

Um, which Dropbox? I don't really want to put it in the OST one.

Developer

Well you could go to your itch.io account and create a project containing the play-through file, or create a new dropbox page.  Then either way you could send me the link to the page.

Developer (1 edit)

Update! So I've been working on the game and trying to get back to where we were. And I'm happy to say I'm almost there! Except for one thing: I added controller input. I've been wanting to get into the input system for a while so I thought that this was a perfect opportunity to finally try it! 

Developer

Great! You are doing amazing work! :D

Developer (1 edit)

Hello everyone! Just wanted to give an update. So we are finally (almost) where we were before BUT with better, simpler code and systems that aren't all connected. This means I'll be able to update the game more easily than before without breaking things. What I'm planning next is making the tasks unique with some fancy UI design, not just pressing a button. And level design, not just the 30-minute time crunch I did before. That was horrible. I'm not done, and everything I said above, I either did at the beginning or I did yesterday. I just haven't had the time to work on the project very much, but I think I'll be back to my normal schedule very soon. Thanks for sticking with me!

Sounds great and it's good we're all slowly going back to it after being busy ':)
Can't wait to see what you come up with

Developer

Great! Can 't wait to see what you cook up! :D

Developer (1 edit)

Hello. Just here to say that I haven't had time to work on the project in like... the last mount? I've been busy  IRL but I'm back.

On a side not. Should the day/night cycle be timed (as in the player can explore for five minutes before the night begins) or using some sort of intractable object to skip the day. My thought is a mix of both so the player can skip the day time if they wish.

 Also I've been thinking about the enemy patrol. In my previous betas the enemy entered a room and left. this was very simple system, but I was thinking about a system where the enemy will have a little path through each room before continuing to the next room.

Your thoughts? 

PS: I'm very sorry about my unexpected break, but it was quite unavoidable.

Developer

No problems on the break topic, I too have had less spare time during my period moving from England to Norway.
So, I too agree the day-night-cycle should be a mix of the propositions, you sould be allowed to walk around and talk to people, but if there's nothing to do you could interact with your chair or something to skip the day.

As for enemy patrols, they sould have a sort of template for movement, but there should also be some randomness factor to it, so that the player can't inspect for one patrol, and then know exactly when and where to move, I was thinking maybe the patrols could occasionally split, for example 50% for them to go to the right, and 50% for them to go to the left, something like that.

Developer (1 edit)

Yes. I like the idea of the game being built in such a way that you know what will happen in a random way.

GMTK has a great video on the topic of randomness that I highly recommend.

Developer (7 edits)

So...Funny story. I learned that unity had changed their pricing plan. I didn't do very much research on it and finaly watched a video on it. after watching it I contemplated saying something because I thought it might change the fate of our project (Spoiler: it didn't).

I created a long message to you guys and... well I just learned that for many reasons that it didn't effect. Here are just two of them:

  1. I'm using a version of unity that isn't affected by them, 
  2.  and I don't make enough money.

The "Funny" part is I labored over my response for about 30 minutes to an hour, and the original pricing-plan which is the reason I created such a long response, wouldn't have affected me either. HA HA! Well, just goes to show that you should do you research, especially on something this important, and never believe that you have all the facts. I actually have my original response saved on my computer it you guys want to see it.

Hope you all are doing well!

Developer

Marvelous! Thank you for the update! But how are we going to do the pricing anyway? I feel you mentioned it, but am not sure. Thanks feller! :D

Developer (3 edits)

We could do a donation system, or once we finish the game, we could make a full version cost some money, or a payed DLC or something. 

No matter what we do, we will dived the money equally among us.

P.S. the "feller" really spoke to me because I live in the Midwest! Thanks!

Developer (1 edit)

Oh, what I meant by pricing plan is that I would have to pay the Unity company 20 cents per download/re-download. That is if I made $100,00 a month. they later changed it so that if you made $200,000 a month on a version that isn't even out yet, then you had to pay them per download.

Developer

Hvot!? That is the most confusing plan, what if the game is free? Then what do you do?

Nothing, that was one of the main problems, it would mean the end of small developers who can´t afford to pay such a big amount of money in case a free game blows up. Every install would count (it will in the new version of Unity) and by every install they really mean it, no real protection against piracy and I think they were trying to see what would happen in case someone installed the game multiple times out of malice. There´s a lot of interesting and messed up details about that plan 

Developer

yep.... Horrible!

Developer

But does this affect Chronos Syndrome?

Nope, because the project is in a version of Unity that won´t suffer from that plan (only the newest version that will launch in 2024 as well as future versions will be affected by the new policies as far as I know)

Developer

Ah, Marvelous! Thank you!

Developer

When I first learned of the changes I thought the project would be affected, so I created a loooong post about it. Then did some research, released I was wrong and deleted that post. HAHA.

Developer

That's why everyone hates it.

Hi! yeah I saw the stupid change in the pricing, Unity's former CEO is literally the worst. 

Good thing it doesn't affect the project though!
About pricing of the game, I think the donation plan plus releasing the game by chapters is really the way to go. And of course splitting the possible gains.

Developer

I agree.

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