INTRO:

Last month was a great experience on how not to go about working on a game. This month though I feel I am better equipped and got a better idea / understanding on what I am going to need to do. Though last months goal was getting to a more demo state, this month is going to be the month I do this.

Goals For This Month:

• Finish the demo core loop 100% with all power ups, and unlockable characters.
• Experiment with a possibility of creating a web build! 

RESULTS:

I have gotten these past few weeks from the Feedback Quest 6, and the Post Jam "Jam" 8 Jam! While my game has improved quite a bit from its really super early version created in early February I made so many mistakes which I highlight in the my 32 Bit Spring Jam devlog. Luckily March has been really good for me, and I managed to steer the ship of the game back on course. While I would have loved to have all progress that March gave in February I am blessed that I learned lessons on taking too much inspiration, and never forgetting your game's core pillars.

During March feedback leads me to believe my core loop works well, style of art works, and my upgrades help! However, I still need to improve on so many things which I plan on hammer down for April.

From the jams I have entered here are the most common issues noticed

• +6 Enemies cheap shot the player as they are behind, and they cannot be heard
• +5 Enemies blend in too much with the background and they hard to see
• +4 Players cannot tell they are being damaged or taking a hit
• +3 Players click out of the upgrade screen as it appear fast, and races against the shotgun secondary
• +3 Players felt lost at the very start of the game as there was no real tutorial level of sort besides my tiny non-repeatable blurb
• +3 Players want some more audio + visual feedbacks (also slightly better complex soundtrack)
• +2 Player want more upgrades in the game that take on an active role

I have already made some plans to fix these issues, and even already created some fixes for myself! At the moment the velocity is going great, and I am hoping to have a proper vertical slice / early access demo done by around mid-April. Wishing the best! 

Also sorry a head of time, for a bit of a jumbled devlog this time. I forgot to write some days down, but I hope at least this top section was okay, No proper cover image, so I put a fun little render I did a couple week back!

Goals For This Month:

• Finish the demo core loop 100% with all power ups, and unlockable character
  • Result:  No quite, I am around 60-70% of the way there, just need to fix up somethings, reintroduce some old elements that I was not done working on and polish some more!
• Experiment with a possibility of creating a web build!
  • Result: Done a bit of experimenting on my off time and not really recorded. At the moment Godot 4.3 Dev does export correctly and I can get around 30 FPS. Not quite the 60 FPS needed to release properly. I will make some small optimizations overtime and see if we can hit this bonus goal as I make some FPS improvements to the base game.

DEVLOG:

Day 1: 03-01-2024

• Breakday

Day 2: 03-02-2024

• Create rough animation for starting simulation
• Resolved bug with screenshakes
• Fixed Unibuddy controller script
• Created SFX sheet
• Mentally prepping for a whole day for creating needed sounds.

Day 3: 03-03-2024

• After thinking and weighing opinions I have chosen to not create my own SFX. While I could in theory do this, my current Linux setup makes the startup for creating a sound environment less than optimal. The plugins I would need to streamline the process are not natively ready for Linux and my native DAW is missing tools I need such as Frequency Shifters.  As much as I would love to use Wine and Carla to get this readied up, this would take way more time than I would want to spend. I will approach creating SFX in game jams in the future but for the moment I need to get some sounds on the board. For these I settled with these lovely sounds packs from the following! I def recommend giving these a good look as they sound amazing :D
  • https://wowsound.itch.io/rpg-magic-sfx-pack
  • https://heltonyan.itch.io/retro-mecha-sfx
  • https://heltonyan.itch.io/retroanimesfx

• Finished all V1s for the sound effects for every interaction I have planned so far (not concerning metaprogression). I will add these tomorrow into the game.
  • Side note: Thank goodness for least trying to make SFX for a while. I was able to use the packs I bought to make small adjustments + layering to get cool effects. I will look at the license to ensure what steps if I need to mention I did this

Day 4: 03-04-2024

• Found some bugs right before the due date. Not the best thing to find at the end of a game jam, but squashed them out
• Even though I already had the sounds, took a minute adding them into the game and making sure they sound correct. 
• Started creating very rough V1 versions of all the enemy models of the game ... 
  
  • Actually, a better idea to save some time would be to include a place holder enemy which have the general vibe I am looking for and playfully add the "work in progress" on it. 
  • This way I can focus on ensuring the game is working fine, while at the same time having some concept on the table. I shall make 3 of these. 1 for each type of enemy I have in the game. This can be considered the base, as each enemy is an advanced version of another.

Day 5: 03-05-2024

• After playing my current demo with all enemies pretty much built I have to say ... its not really that much more fun that before. In fact I think I made it worst actually. The problems with the game are the following!
  • Removing the shotgun remove one of the more fun options of the game which was amusing to shoot
  • Spawner chasing for enemies felt kind of janky and could be better
  • Most of the powerups are weapon based and actives. However, with my game the moment you add too much actives you just go broken too fast ...

  To fix this issue I think I know the solution! I have been playing 20 Minutes to Dawn for a while, and I noticed the main character there feels roughly similar to my own, and not as much VS. The reason being since its not auto-fire stats upgrades mean something way more than just adding more weapons on myself. Likewise, I think I can use the all around spawning system mix it up with audio related spawning of Devil Daggers to get something unique and better suited for the survivors-like type of gameplay while still retaining Devil Daggers like arena and playstyle.
  

Day 6: 03-06-2024

• Added a total of 40+ different power ups each with unique effects, and made them in a skill tree kind of format with 4 nodes in each tree. I will work in the power logic next day as most are stat boost, and reuse of the same code from last month!
  • Challenges: Similar to Binding of Isaac Devil Deals where I make it more difficult but offers a reward after the initial taken powerup.
    • Increase Enemy Health
    • Increase Enemy Frequency
  • General: These are for base stats like speed, health, and gems.
    • Health
    • Speed
    • Gem
  • Weapon: These effect the character's weapon stats and abilities.
    • Fire Rate
    • Projectile Speed
  • Artifacts: Character specific changes

• Revived all character model, and adjust base stats to where to feels just a tad bit underpowered from the MVP build.

Day 7: 03-07-2024

• Work emergency today which took up the entire day. Did not get to start working properly until around 10:00ish so less time than wanted. I want to really get my new game idea tested for the Feedback Quest, so I need to make some serious cuts. 
  • Keep all 40+ Upgrades, but do not polish the UI other than the use of sound. 
  • Light polish to the area. Add around only the pillars + light arena polish.
  • Cut all new enemies up the Spike boss as its gets the rough idea already, then loop aroun

• Polishing the main gun!
  • Adjust stats again to match a slightly under powered DD controller
  • Added animation and screenshake to gun

• Fixed Gem bug where it could be damaged passed 0

Day 8: 03-08-2024

• Polish the minigun some more! Fixed up some issues
• Code all new 40+ unique upgrades to the game! :D
  • I will be adjusting as needed, but cool to know I have everything for the most part here!

Day 9: 03-09-2024

• Celebrate my aunt's birthday! So only worked a half day here
• Finalized cut scope for the Feedback Quest Jam with majority of the features I wanted to check
• Finished up core loop here.
  • This time implement a "complete" screen around 5:00ish minutes.

Day 10 - 11: 03-10-2024 - 03-11-2024

• Submit to the Feedback Jam and Post Jam events to get some more feedback on my game at the moment and its newer playstyle!
  • Also took a small break here.

Day 12: 03/12/24

• Played a few games from the Feedback Quest Jam and gave some feedback :)
  • Games reviewed and rated: 5
• Adjusted the jump code to allow for high jumps
• Added SFX for jumping to give more feel
• Added more juice to the player controller to avoid feeling too stiff!
• Increase size of blades for better visuals + added random starting rotations to give more texture to the eye based on DD
• Adjusted spawner logic to spawn less aggressively at a 15-25 second spawn interval depending on Spawner level

Day 13: 03/13/24

• Played a few games from the Feedback Quest Jam and gave some feedback :)
  • Games reviewed and rated: 4
    
• Fixed special blades bug

Day 14: 03/14/24

• Played a few games from the Feedback Quest Jam and gave some feedback :)
  • Games reviewed and rated: 4
• Create a quick and dirty music sound track to get  a better idea of how I wanted music to be
  
• Fixed big crystal glitch!
  • I will make a new model for this so this should resolve with new modeled HUB
• Planned rest of the week's sprint!

Day 15: 03/15/24

• Played a few games from the Post Process Jam!
  • Games reviewed and rated: 3
• Created a solid draft of the SFX for the gun and optimized space for creating them!
• Beefing up my Protracker 2 skills by reading and watching material
  • Worked on game OST ~ HUB
• Created models for Starbuddy and Cherub

Day 16: 03/16/24

• Small break, but not too large
• Played a few games from the Post Process Jam! 
  • Game reviewed and rated: 5
• Turned some issues from the reviews into tickets
• Hotpatch for turning off auto VSync in the game
• Created new design the boid enemies and prepping to model them out
• Play around with the idea of having the collect the gems
• Created the SFX for the shotgun!
• Spawn Model Concept Arting

Day 17: 03/17/24

• Reviewed and gave feedback!
  • Games reviewed and rated: 1
• I ended up getting a lot of feedback, spent all day reading them creating potential solutions and responding to each message
  • Total: 7 reviews read with tickets and solutions created
• Setup all future sprints needed for the CORE BUILD build, which is currently aimed / projected for March 24
  • This build creates a near solid FINAL art deadline for the general vibe with only changes from this point being for mechanical reasons + all core enemy types needed for the complete demo
• Setup all future sprints material needed for EXPERIENCE ENHANCED build which is aimed for being completed by April 7
  • This build collects over half of the feedback I have received and ensures they are all meet + adds meta progression + extra characters and a few new skills trees.
• Created board for "head" HUD for character based on old games like Ghost in the Shell, and modern FPS like Halo + Doom Remake

Day 18: 03/18/24

• GOAL: MAIN GAME COMPLETE IN 2 WEEKS STARTED
  • After all the feedback I think its safe to crank up the work, readd the old content and polish n fix small details.
• Create a song structure draft for the song!
• Create new boid base mode + spawners
• Created the base HUD visual draft

Day 19: 03/19/24

• Work on game OST ~ AREA Drums + Sound Structure
• Created 3D model for the HUD for the game, and settled on appearance!
• Finalized the boid shapes + spawner
  • Add ternary shapes for better detail

Day 20: 03/20/24

• Drafting music in Reaper now vs my Protracker as its just easier to work on all audio in the same environment vs having to swap every times (sorry PT-2)
  • Pad drafting
• Translating the Blender UI I created into Godot 4 and figuring out how to add glow to UI elements lol
• Found some amazing reference for the droids from PN.03. I will using this as inspiration and some old tech
  • Adjusted details of the designs

Day 21: 03/21/24

• Complete the Godot UI translation!
• Adjust enviroment settings glow + added crt shaders
• Made some game design tickets based on trying out Brotato
• Finish up the droids for the boids + tanks + spawners least the finalized shapes.

Day 22-24: 03/23/24

• BREAK DAY!

Day 25: 03/25/24

• Mech panel practice
• Created end of run screen with

Day 26: 03/26/24

I wish art was as straight forward as programming single player systems

• Created unlock system + resources
• Created purchase system + resources
• Created achievement system + resources
• Created template for song track + selected instruments
• Worked on the humanoid boss enemies
• Worked on panel creation drawing

Day 27: 03/27/24 - 03/30/24

• Hooked up purchase system + unlock system works
• Hooked up bit calculation logic to the end game
• Polished up the upgrades system by allowing player to choosen when they upgrade by pressing tab
• Hooked up HP pips
• Music notes <-- Ran out time time to compose, I will do this forsure tomorrow!!!
• Model out hands hands + starter for the generic body type for humanoids
• Work on mecha panel lines