16/03/2015:
-Pathfinding appears to be fixed. Bugs involving an incorrect amount of enemies (3 or 5+ rather than 4) occurs every so often so I have no clue what is causing it but in general the enemies can find the player even after returning to rTest from rTraits.
-Created a a pit sprite that is kinda shit but a good base for possible later use.
-Changed the oLight to create the flares light with code rather than with a sprite, allowing easier editing later. Also allowed the dynamic creating of flares by pressing "F". Only one can be placed for the moment though.
-Had game tested. Results: The cocking mechanic, while neat, is kinda annoying with using the right click. Find a suitable alternative if possible.
17/03/2015:
-Attempted to have ALL placed flares create a circle of light but failed for now. Improved the zombie and bullet sprites. Changed the bullet speed, making the game surprisingly more fun.
18/03/2015:
-Added enemy knock-back on hit, reloading now requires a lot more time as each bullet is loaded one at a time. To make this less painful sounds are played to for each bullet to assure the player and once the gun is full it is automatically cocked so the player can fire right away.
-Designed some perks/traits for later implementation.
19/03/2015:
-Had tested for the new gun-mechanics. Results: Reloading needs to be a little quicker/fun. Game is generally too dark. Improve the GUI.
-Halved the starting reload speed and edited the speed perk to make it even quicker. Game fits its faster paced nature much better now.
-Altered the spawning and chasing mechanics. More zombies spawn but they'll only chase you if you get within a certain range of them. This is vital in allowing players some breathing space before they get mowed down by enemies.
20/03/2015:
-Doubled the room size and increased the flash-light range to compensate. The game now runs in full screen (needs testing at some point for other resolutions) and uses views to look pretty damn good.
21/03/2015:
-Created a floppy disk sprite and a computer terminal sprite. The idea is that by collecting x number of floppy disks and returning to the computer terminal results in either a bonus or a round win. I'll have to decide through testing which is preferable.
-Nudging the enemies when shot, and the player collision detection with walls (but only on the left hand side of walls) are both FUCKING BROKEN FOR LITERALLY NO APPARENT REASON. It's just like that now. The floppy disks are now collectible but do fuck all because fuck this.
-Somehow I have the nudging working again. I still have no fucking clue how I fixed it but I did.
22/03/2015:
-Fixed the player collision detection. I fixed it by actually making it, which makes me question how it worked in the first place.
-Also fixed a bizarre deletion of the ammo collection code.
As you can see I got really annoyed on Saturday (21st) which looking back was kinda childish, but I make a thing of not editing past notes (apart from the occasional spelling error 'cos those bug me a lot) so that gets to stay. Also of note is the addition of an actual goal for the player. I've had a lot of thoughts about this throughout the development and while I've so far decided to make the game about surviving each wave of enemies I'm thinking that having the player explore to collect items is a much better system for 3 reasons:
1) It forces the player out of their comfort zone. As I don't want to spend forever making levels I'm probably only going to create a few and then randomly place the object that need collecting (floppy disks). Doing this, along with making the levels much larger, basically forces the player to explore parts of the levels that they may have never been to before helping keep the levels interesting.
2) It gives the player drive. With just a goal of survival I honestly don't think the game has much variety. It'll get really boring really quick. Having the player set out with limited bullets, exploring the darkness around them is much more interesting. Especially when I hide unique, super dangerous enemies in there.
3) It offers a chance for story. If all you have to do it survive the only proper chance I get for story is in between waves or as some sort of collectible thing. The former is alright but will feel disjointed and not part of the games world. The latter is fine but without a drive to explore (see #2) they probably wont go out of their way for story snippets. If they happen to find one while trying to collect an essential item however they will probably go and grab it. It's the difference between going half way across the map to get a bit of story or nipping a few feet to the left to grab it. Most players wouldn't want to do the first, unless the story is really good which I hope it will be anyway, but pretty much everyone would be fine with the latter and that's better.
In other news I've continued on with Lore writing adding another "societal value" (real crap name for these things) in the form of Exploration/Diplomacy. I figure working out where certain races can go & when, who they meet and how they all get on is a really important thing to understand early on. I've also been making a few tweaks to other things I've written but those aren't really of interest at the moment.
Lastly I've been doing some cartography. Specifically I've been drawing one of the two main continents I've created and I'll be posting them here as soon as I get access to a scanner. Either that or I'll recreate them digitally whatever comes first I guess. But that's enough for tonight I'll get back to enjoying my Sunday evening.
BONUS POINTLESS PICTURE:
Look at how black this game is. I really need to add some other forms of lighting don't I.
-Beau
twitter.com/Bocodillo
Looks awesome! Looking forward to play with your games! :)
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