April DevLog: Align the Stars!

     Currently still getting everything into place to make sure this works out perfectly. I'm really just taking it one day's mission at a time in order to not get overwhelmed and stumped by paralysis anymore. 

     I mean, this project gets really scary when I think about how much work there's left to do and how much my life depends on it coming out at the right time with the right quality and shown to the right people in order to take off the way I need it to. 

    It personally helps me to just zoom in and focus on the individual pieces, that way when I look back at the project as a whole every month, I can get a sense of how impressive progress has been.

State of the Game

   I have screenshots galore for you guys this time around! A whole buncha updates to old layouts and a few new ideas on top.

     The snapshots below are all in-engine mockups with placeholder data. That means the buttons you see actually exist and the menus can interact with each other. Each menu also adjusts to any landscape screen resolution, so it fits well on any rectangle shaped screen.

     Next I gotta use data-binding and monoBehaviors to populate them, which is nerd speak for filling in all the blanks and gibberish with actual numbers and sprites. After that I'll use PlayMaker to handle anything trickier than having certain GameObjects appear and animate. Then comes portrait mode...

     Here goes the first example of a menu overhaul. The left one is the newbie, now featuring 6 slots for weaknesses (since you'll be hard-pressed to find anypony with more than that) as well as room for squeezing in the GP meter. 

     Another addition to the screen is the filled bar beneath each stat showing the base value in the stat's color. Any buffs will be represented in bright teal, and any debuffs show up as grey. It looks messy here, but it'll be more clear once it's actually up and running.

     Another example of a revamped menu is this here Options page. Now using sliders instead of making you click 10 or 20 times to get to the sound level you want. 

     When leveling up you'll get to choose to upgrade your health, mana, or stats. This should do wonders for replayability as you try out different specs each run in addition to different pony team combinations.

An extra surprise for leveling up could be your pony learning a new move right then and there. You can choose to add it to your moveset immediately (all the text is placeholder junk for now til I put something in there, but this is pretty much where I'll be putting everything).

On the left you'll see details for the new move, on the right you can compare it to the move currently in the slot it's trying to occupy.

     And we've got a new storage screen here. Picking out your pony team now resembles selecting a fighting game character! Looks cooler this way, I think. We'll see how it looks after I add a bunch of fancy effects.

     And the last really noticeable change is in the Party screen. Listing the party members more prominently and trying to make it clear that the top one is the currently active form who's stats you can see. 

     Your pony's travel moves are listed on the left side, showing if anypony in your party can cut/surf/smash/etc. allowing you to do those things in the overworld without a second thought. 

     I'm also gonna add some finger pointing cursors here to demonstrate how to select a pony from the pool then place it in one of the 3 party slots for use in battle. All=around, things are looking cool.

Setbacks

   Figuring out CSVs was way more convoluted than it needed to be. I wanted to find a more efficient way to read from these things without the massive slowdown present in the last build of the game. What ended up actually happening was a week full of failed attempts, false starts, and a couple instances of wasted assets. 

     In the end, it looks like I'm better off moving forward with what I know works instead of wasting another week trying to get what should be a super basic thing to compile properly. I'll just need to get clever with how and when I load these things to keep slowdown from annoying anybody.

     I tried going back & fourth troubleshooting different excel spreadsheet reading tools and just ended up nowhere after days of effort. I know this is an opportunity to revamp everything, but sometimes it's wiser to just let go and follow the path of least resistance to get to the destination I'm after.

     Here's to hoping there's no more unforseen snags in the road ahead. This journey's gonna be long enough.

Task List

     There's still a bunch of things to do before I can go around promoting a new demo for the game. Getting to the complete prototype milestone is taking much longer than expected, but it seems like this time around I'm getting the bulk of the hard stuff out of the way first.

My upcoming tasks for May are as follows:

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Prototype

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1. Foundation
   1. Fill in Save/Load Scripts with proper references. 
   2. Test CSV scripts for reading new spreadsheets 
   3. Test Interface Localization pipeline (English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese)
   4. Make Debug Controls affect variables.
   5. Make Menus fully interact & animate.
   6. Playtime Tracker Script
   7. Hold Escape to Shutdown or Bring out Debug Button
   8. Data Bind to populate Menus.
   9. Tile Map Process Test on Demo Island
   10. Grid Navigation in overworld with D-Pad input.
   11. Pathfinding system test. 

If I can manage to do all that, I'll be proud. Putting the YouTube ideas on hold til there's actually something to show. I want a new demo out there more accurately reflecting the new vision for the game.

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     There's a bunch more screenshots to see if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, so keep an eye out there since I usually can't help but post a thing as soon as I finish,seeking attention and riding that high of actually accomplishing things.

     Thanks for your unprecedented patience and hype for this game that's taking me half a decade to finish. Without that monthly reminder that patrons are out there counting on me to get this game out, I'd be way less motivated on these endless weeks of work/excercise/gamedev. 

Trying real hard to get my act together over here, and you guys keep me sane. Thanks for being the earliest fans of Battle Gem Ponies.