Dear Future Me,
I’m just a tab bit late.
So we’re gonna make this quick, cuz I wanna. Here’s a recap of what I planned on working on for the month of April, with what I got done.
- A second level.
Refine the transition between scenes and make a test system.Maybe the overworld, a view of the building you run around!
Make security bots that patrol, spot Steve, and chase/shoot(?).- Turrets with similar features.
Swinging/flickering lights.Better chemical pools and chemical falls.Create a save system to track scores and levels played.(Mostly)A pause menu- And maybe some camera effect.
That ain’t bad, but lets cover the specifics.
Refining the transition between scene and whatnot: I did a big refactoring of all the code. Though I’m not certain that I’ve made it much easier to code with, what I did do was make it so I can test any level at any time without having to start from a base scene.
This works by loading the level, recognizing if its the base scene, then loading in the control scene if so. The control scene can then do it’s things and bring in Steve and other assets as needed. Simple enough. I did end up adding in an “Overworld” of sorts but this is more for the save system than anything else.
Security Bots, Lights, and chemical pools: I gave the chemical pools a nice wavy overhaul and added in little bubbles that randomly rise to the surface from any give point.
Added in chemical falls.
And the security bots will now chase you around if they spot you. Fun little red light idea courtesy of my wife.
All these are now simply tiles that can be added in at will when creating a level. Simple.
The lights will now give a little swing and a flicker when you land on them. Shout out to CaptainGroovy. The interesting part about this task, is the cables for the lights were previously tiles themselves. However with the lights moving, they need to also follow the swing and be entirely adjustable in length depending on where you place them. So now, when you place a light when creating a scene, it wont have any cables. Then on level load, it shoots a cable up until it hits the ceiling. The swing could still use some work, as it pivots around the max length of the cable, not the ceiling contact point.
A pause menu: This is one of my favorites. When pausing the game it now gives a little retro CRT overlay and muffles the game audio. I love it so much, I decided to apply it to any menu system going forward.
Along with the filter, I’ve added BMO’s I mean N.I.N.J.A.’s face to the menu systems. (à la Montageculture and my wife). The glitch effect needs work, but the face movement’s really give it character and make it interesting to watch.
The Save System: This was the biggest beast of the month. While I’d like to say it was difficult because the saving process is complicated, I’m really just creating a JSON file with the level stats in it.
No, the hard part was me shooting myself in the foot be decided some of the menu systems are levels themselves. The home screen, the save select screen, the level select screen. I could have these as just regular menus and plug them directly into the global controller. But nooooooo, I have to make them fun levels, so now I have to find ways to pass data back and forth between them in order to get the job done.
The solutions was neither elegant nor easy, and will likely be a dragon to fight another day. I still have one last piece to create on it, which would be adding the recently finished level to the save file. Shouldn’t be too difficult as the loading, editing, and saving portions are solid and I don’t expect too much trouble with this final step.
Other than that, I did neglect to post to a public form for another month, but we’ll get there!
This Months Goals!
- Finalize the save system
- Create assets for Steve’s House for the opening cut-scene
- Write more of the story for the first section of the game. (Bottom Secret Labs)
- Turn said story into cut-cenes, 2-3.
- Create the Steam account and start creating page for it.
- Create maybe 2-3 levels.
- Post something about it somewhere for feedback. Thinking Reddit.
Big month for visual design and background tasks I think.
Aside from running 9 days late on this update, overall not a bad month. Kudos!
Person Journey-wise, Here’s Where We’re At.
The big thing this month was an almost cliche conversation with my therapist. Delving into my past, looking for formative times in my childhood that may affect my view of the world. What I’ve found most interesting is it’s not huge emotional trauma that’s been hiding in the wings, but small little moment that you would assume would be forgotten forever because from the outside they are meaningless.
What’s bubbled to the surface from all this searching and researching is a fear of being excluded, a fear of shame, and a resulting perfectionism that I believe I use as a security blanket. I’ve listen to a great audio book called Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown. For the most part it’s really simply going over groups of emotions and states that may be confused with one another and more accurately defining them. (e.g. Shame, Embarrassment, Humiliation.) Although, going into it I wouldn’t assume you would get a ton of wisdom from better defining the concepts, it is a wonderful listen and gives an excellent perspective on finding what it is you may be feeling.
So, to close this out and as an exercise in not worrying so much about being perfect, I’m not gonna review this aside from stumbled across corrections. There may be some obvious spelling/grammar errors, might be hard to understand at times, and places where I used ‘effect’ when it should have been ‘affect’. But lets be honest, I’m not a writer and you were getting those anyway.
It’s about doing things because they fit with my values, not because I need to be approved by others.