Game Dev - Nov 2024 #01 - New Additions

I've spent the last few days working on game development. Here are the most notable additions...

New Object - Show Picture:

Illustrations can now be displayed mid-gameplay.

If the object's picture is undefined, then it will use whatever image was previously set to a global variable by default. This global variable can be set by the level itself, in case I wanted to have level-specific game over illustrations.

I'm not sure about sexy bad ends being too frequent, however, as I don't want to encourage players to die over and over just to get "rewards". So being able to set & display images mid-level will allow me to provide context-based or collectible illustrations.

New Enemy - Untitled Wall Orbiter:

A new enemy approaches, but unlike most enemies, this is one you have to avoid! This enemy will crawl along the wall slowly (or quickly) and can not be killed, forcing players to jump over them.

One of the biggest problems in the latest demo is the lack of enemy variety - and options to disrupt the player's pace. This is one more tool in the arsenal to make the player think when navigating space.

Although its behavior is rather simple, it was a deceptively complex enemy to program. Most enemies only care about 1 or 2 collision checks, but this one has 16 distinct collision checks to make sure it will wrap around wall corners. Annoying!

The current assets of the "Fuzz Buster" are copyrighted materials, so I'll have to design a new sprite.

Adjustments / Other:

• New Scripts to check if an object is partially / fully within the camera's boundaries.

• Enemy Axes will be destroyed if off-screen, minimizing unfair hits on players from above.

• The Game Over screen will now communicate a decrease in the player's life total.

• The Game Over screen will now show illustrations when the player's life total reaches 0.

What's Next?

I have to focus on cleaning & fixing the player collision points before I even think about adding any more "big" features, but it's the problem I most dread working on... I have for months! But I can't leave that hanging over my head if I'm going to do anything else that will take a lot of work. Sadly, working on this particular issue never feels like actual progress...

Perhaps I should think of a secondary goal to do on the side so it doesn't feel so boring...

Don't forget to eat & sleep.