Mask's Devlog

These past 10 days have been mainly on smaller stuff, but unfortunately less time has been spent as college goes into full swing. Nevertheless, the basic building blocks have been coded, Now it’s time to design some dungeons to explore. I already have a few ideas on some areas, but I will need to properly sketch them out. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be shown through gameplay, so expect more general sketches on new updates. Also, this devlog will update on Fridays from now on, as it is the day I have the most free time. In the meantime, I must get back to work.

For day-by-day / more frequent updates, follow my twitter @maskmw. Ask Box is also open.

Day 22 - Added additional box - can be pushed and broken for items

Day 23 - Added health items

Day 24 - Already scheduled event - no work done.

Day 25 - Work on college Assignments

Day 26 - GUI touch-ups, namely hiding bow meter when not in use and changing to a new healthbar. 

Day 27 - Added keys

Day 28 - Work on college assignments

Day 29 - coded save script

Day 30 - coded load script

Week 3 of 2020 has concluded, and All I have is a few switches to show for it. In all seriousness though, this took some time and I’m glad the basics are done. As you can tell, there are currently two types of switches - a button that can be depressed, and a target to be shot with an arrow. The lightbulb is just an object to test them, it will not be in the finished product. With the bare bones puzzle elements completed, I can move on to some smaller things to tweak in this test room. For now, I am satisfied.

For day-by-day updates, follow my twitter @maskmw. Ask box is also open.

Day 15 - Day off due to dentist appointment and other events.

Day 16 - Coded in box , button, and test puzzle.

Day 17 - Updated test puzzle object to be more flexible with number and type of buttons.

Day 18 - Added target switch.

Day 19 - Moved into dorm, no coding done.

Day 20 - Added variables to limit box’s movement to a given area.

Two weeks into 2020 and more progress has been made! It’s still slow progress, and it may not to be much to look at, but I feel doing something small every day instead of a larger weekly update keeps me motivated! Unfortunately, college is creeping up closer, so some more time off was taken to account for that. 

As usual, you can track the daily updates on my twitter, @MaskMW. 

Ask box is also open if anyone cares about that.

(DAY BY DAY PROGRESS)

Day 8: broken objects may now drop items that can be collected.

Day 9: No work done, as I was preparing for the spring semester.

Day 10: Implemented I-Frames

Day 11: Tileset started, but not complete enough to start tiling the test room.

Day 12: Poor sleep resulted in no work being done.

Day 13: Dialog system started, with box similar to the sign’s interaction in the video above.

New year’s day has come and gone, and I’m feeling confident again. Hopefully I won’t burn out for quite a while, so for now, a new project begins. Instead of a space shooter as previous posts have shown, I am working on an adventure game now. I figure doing something different may keep me on track, so to speak. Development will be slower too, as I feel the main error with previous revivals was doing everything asap. With this slower pace, I will be able to avoid burning out immediately.

Daily updates will be on my twitter, @maskmw. These tumblr updates will serve as a weekly summary. 

Day 1: Player’s walking and still sprites drawn, and movement coded.

Day 2: Sword attack drawn, animation implemented.

Day 3: Sword implementation completed, added pause and health bar.

Day 4: Bow drawing sprites were drawn and animation was implemented, but the action was not.

Day 5: arrows added to the game, as well as bombs and bow drawing bar (is there a better way for me to word this?)

Day 6 was a day off.

Well, this plan turned into a disaster.

My hope with the whole “Working on a new version of the thing” was to get out of the block I was in. Instead, it pushed me further into that block. You can tell because this devlog fell silent THREE DAYS IN this challenge. As such, some things will be changed.

First, I am shelving the current project. I can’t bring myself to work on Unbound right now, so I will focus elsewhere. Will I go back to it? Hopefully. Will it be soon? No. Will it be the new version? Also no. Once I regain proper motivation, I will go back. But for now, I will not be actively developing the game from previous posts.

Second, I will not promise regular updates on this log. While I understand regular content is what people want, I can’t force myself to do so. That will only amplify my burnout. I still want to make games. But it will be at my own pace.

Finally, I will be going back to basics. I wanted to create a game with a full story, with a good amount planned out in advance. I still want to. But I can’t right now. Therefore, I will be focusing on smaller, more arcade-like games for the time being. If I do update at all this year, it will be on those. I hope to get something you can play with, at least one, before the year ends.

I apologize for not posting this sooner.

I apologise for the lack of photos this update, but I have not had as much time as I had hoped. I wanted to get the three main enemy types done today, but could only get the basic outline done. In lieu of photos, instead I will tell you the types of enemies I hope to add.

First , there's the charger. It has free movement and targets you, but it cannot fire bullets, does minimal damage, and is slow.

Next, there's the sniper. It can fire bullets and has accurate aiming, but it must follow a path and the bullets are easy to dodge.

Finally is the tank. It has free movement and can aim, with a large bullet. However, it and it's bullets are slow.

Each enemy has a skill that the others lack in some regard. I hope to come back with these enemies fully coded in the future I apologise for the lack of flash in this update, but I hope to make the wait worth it.

In the meantime, fell free to send asks my way.

As the screenshot above shows, the “ship” area of the game has been rebuilt. This is a short day of coding, however, as work fast approaches. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you more today. However, I have the day off tomorrow, so I expect to get some real fireworks in here.

I’m back from the void, quite a ways later than the expected point of May. (I apologize for that). I have been dealing with a malfunctioning laptop, returning to work, and an overall lack of motivation. My final project for school drained me quite a bit. However, I do not want to stop now. And since this is my birth month, I decided it is time to give myself the kick in the pants I need. I am going to restart the project with an almost clean slate, only a few sprites and objects will be carried over. And for the rest of this month (and august 1st because I missed the start of this month) I will be working on rebuilding the game, keeping this devlog updated in the meantime. Now, let’s get to work.

With the new project file and a few objects imported, I created a basic test room. With movement and a pause feature implemented, and a basic tileset drawn, the overworld’s basic mechanics are essentially complete (mainly object interaction has been tested, and a branches in dialog have been implemented. I wish I could show more, but most of today’s time has been used to get this basic items off the ground. Tomorrow, I hope to implement a test area for the action segments (a basic arcade shooter, at least) and get the two areas to switch with each other. 

Thank you for following this devlog.

Good golly, it's been a while since I posted on here.

I'm sure everyone who kept a tab on this blog and then promptly closed has wondered what I've been up to. Long story short: College started again, and I decided to put more focus into my education for the time being. In fact, should all go well, I should be getting my Associates degree! After that its summer then moving forward to my bachelor's.

I don't intend to leave this blog behind, nor the game it's associated with. However, other projects and calculus III have prevented me from actively developing this project. Once class is out, I intend to return to UNBOUND and get as far as I can into development. On the plus side, most of the gameplay is done so it should go by quickly. Until graduation, this blog must go dormant.

I apologise for the drought of updates. I thank anyone who found me early on for their patience.

It’s been quite some time since actual progress has been shown in screenshot form. Fortunately, I had a lot more free time this week and got quite a lot of progress in. First off, the upgrade system:

As you can see, the basics have been implemented. Right now, you can increase your health, fire rate, and damage. In the future, I’d like to implement a way to upgrade your ship to perform some special attacks as well as other ways to harm enemies, such as a missile-like weapon. Without upgrades, your gameplay may look something like this:

Spending some Credits (temp name) to increase your stats will make it look something like this: 

As you can see, the health bar has lengthened and more bullets are coming out faster. (times like this I wish I knew how to capture GIFs...)

Another thing I was able to do was re-work some of the UI sprites. For starters, the textbox has been changed from the previous gray rectangl, as well as the UI in the bullet-hell section.

(I know it’s different from the space UI above, I drew this new one after capturing that screenshot). You may also notice a new, orange target. This type of enemy will lock onto you, and actively aim bullets to your ship.

This concludes this Devlog Entry. Unfortunately, this week was the most free time I will have for quite some time, with college starting back up, so I apologize if updates slow or are not as packed with new features. The basic gameplay has been roughly 80% implemented, so actual development should start soon. As for what does still need to be added:

-1 final enemy type

-Sounds

-Bit more spritework

Hey there, apologies for the delayed post. Text only this time, as not much has been done. Life had me busier to the point where I lacked much time to code. I hope to make that up to you this Sunday.

As for progress on the upgrade system, variables have been put in place for the adjustable values, and points (proper currency name later) can be earned, everything just needs to be tied together.

A minor tweaks has been made to the new enemy type, making it easier to dodge it's bullets.

Thank you for your patience everyone, I'll see you Sunday.