My dev name is Mr Gaming Bear and this is my 4th video game and the 2nd that I develop for mobile phones. 

Meet Max, an ex-comando that had been expulsed from the army after the war in Vietnam for not listening to the orders of his superiors, who wanted him to take over a village of innocent people as a strategic point. 

Year 1987

After years of being exiled and living a normal life, Max is needed again… There is something going on in Perú. The US satelites have detected anomalous magnetic actions under the mountain of Machu Picchu. The government believes that this might be the beginning of an alien invasion.

Who's going to handle the situation? Yes You're right! 

Max is back, and he's a Badass!

This Devlog is going to be about Max's journey to save the world. My intentions are to explain all the details and also share the tools that I'm using for creating this game. Badass Max is a retro 2D shooter based on my nostalgia and memories about the good old days when i used to play Contra, Super Contra and all the saga on my videoconsole. 

I'll post videos and screenshots from the game so can everyone see the evolution of the game. Please feel free to comment and also give your opinión and feedback which is going to help me improve the game when needed.

Thanks a lot everyone! I hope you enjoy the journey along Max and I! ;)

LOG 1

Hi everyone! After days of working, I decided to share with you my first shots from the game and explain how I did everything.

THE PLAYER: 

This is Badass Max. 

To create Badass Max I used only two tools: Piskel for creating the game art and Unity to animate the character. 

Piskel is a great tool for creating materials using pixel art, it's one of the tools that I love when creating retro like games. I'll leave a link to the app in case someone doesnt know it and wants to try it. Piskel link: https://www.piskelapp.com/
Unity 3D has an amazing animator that is very intuitive and easy to use inside the game engine. It's very easy to use and fast. To animate Badass Max i had to create the character in separate parts, not in one piece. This meaning that I splitted the parts of the body (or created separatly in Piskel) and joined them in Unity as different objects. The next step had been animating the parts that you want to move inside the game, such as the legs, the weapon or the head. To learn more about how to anímate in Unity, I recommend you to follow Blackthornprod here on itch.io and the YouTube channel where you can find videos that are amazing for learning more about Unity.

THE LEVEL : 

The first level starts in the jungle. To design the level I used Piskel to create different enemies and tiles, and the jungle background from the Jungle Pack created by Jesse Munguia. 

The ambience effects are made using the Particles System from Unity to create the floating dust/particles effect that move randomly around the scene. 

The light effects are very simple and easy to create. The light beams have been made using Paint.NET, an amazing tool that can be used to create many different types of art. Create a white object inside the layer, delete the white background so it can be transparent, add the blur effect and export it. Inside Unity I just played with the shape and size of the beam and transparency.

This all for the first day of my devlog. Next devlog will about the enemies found on level 1. 

Stay tuned for more and if you want to know more about the development of the game remember to also follow me on YouTube and Instagram :)

TO BE CONTINUED...

LOG 2

After weeks of work I can finally sit down and write about the devlog.  The game is still under construction and going well. 

Today I'll focus on the controls of the game.

Building the player's mechanics was easy, as it includes basic movements like moving left and right, jumping and double jumping. The issues started when I tried to adapt the mouse movement so the player can point using virtual buttons/joysticks for mobile phones. Using the mouse is very easy, but changing the script to use virtual joysticks took a while and a lot of twiking, but in the end the time spent has been useful to end up with a good joystick control.

The virtual buttons are placed in a position that can be easily accessed and that will not bother while playing.

The movement button only moves forward and backwards and it doesn't include the aiming or jumoing action of the player. The reason for doing so is because aiming while moving would make  both shooting and moving slow and sloppy, therefore making the game hard to play and very frustrating for the player. 

The jump button includes double jump action to reach higher platforms and protect yourself from different enemies.

In the video below you can see all the features, mentioned before, in action :)

Stay tuned for more and if you want to know more about the development of the game remember to also follow me on YouTube and Instagram :)