Draknier Story - Dev Diary #04 - Experimentation, Prototyping, & Game Engine Exploration

Hello everyone!

Time for the dev diary update! This dev diary may contain technical terms related to Unity Engine or programming so I apologize in advance. There will also be Dev Diary update #05  on November 30, 2019 wherein there will be art, narrative concept, project vision, and etc. Also apologies again as this post might be heavy to load due to many gifs (º[]º;)

So now let's get started(ฅ`ω´ฅ). I've been pretty much studying the very basic of using unity and getting used to it. With so much resources available for any question I may have, it really is convenient. As I am learning while building the game, I have 1 main project build while the other project builds is where I do my experiment/study before integrating them in the main build.

With this one, I am using a simple movement. 

Here, I am trying to understand unity's prefab more (prefab - sort of a container, template, or node) . So I instantiate/spawn the cubes with mouse clicks. I just seem to enjoy screwing around when testing something(ᗒᗨᗕ) I also added Rigidbody which makes it feels like it has weight, collide, and bounces.



This time , I made another object, which is capsule shape. My my, not that I will be using physics for the jrpg project, but testing this was really fun (ᗒᗨᗕ) 

This time, i added a jump. More like an unrestricted jump count (think of kirby, but more jumps). And yes, shoving those capsule away feels great  (≧∀≦)

Now time for rapid shooting \(≧∇≦)/

This one is a test for hit/collision detection. This will be interesting to use if there are puzzle or mini-event like scenario in the game just like in Breath of Fire III, Wild Arms, or Zelda: Majora's Mask. Or maybe in villages or towns that have festivals. Basic function, but powerful and has many uses.

And that's all for the experimantal build, now we go to the main jrpg project build and
where I applied what I both tested & learned. Not everything is tested on the experimental build so I did try to figure out & implement some new things in this build.

Now we got a moving and rotating character placeholder (Not using rigidbody w/ this one).

This time, I am testing to move on slope. Also implemented a temporary camera function that follows the player. This actually had me thinking, if I am going to use a bit of birds eye mode, fixed camera, a 3rd person camera, or a mix of them depending on the scene. 

Poof, there is now gravity, although the problem here is, it is bouncy when going down the slope. I will have to rework this later on after I learn more about raycast in unity. I was actually planning to not try the slopes as I was considering this as a world map with flat ground, but can't help and feel tempted on trying to implementing it (；´∀｀).

Here's a trigger event region. This is probably the one I will be utilizing the most such as for moving between world map and area map, doors, trigger cutscenes, and many more（๑✧∀✧๑）.

There are also some behind-the-scenes I have been doing such as I finally cleared plenty of confusion I had prior regarding classes and construct and the basic application of it in Unity after studying it. There are more topic I would like to learn them and how to properly utilize them. Such as inheritance, polymorphism, attributes, and etc. as I feel like it will benefit me a lot when I implement more complex stuff, and may help me avoid from making my code too spaghetti (very confusing, similar to spaghetti or messy cable arrangement).

And lastly, here's an overall preview of the experiment build with a bunch of stuff if you might be interested to see.

That is  how much I can show for now, I know it is quite simple/basic,  but I hope it was not too disappointing for you (*≧∀≦*).

Thank you again for your interest, support, and following how the project evolves(๑´ㅂ`๑).
It means a lot to me and I mean it, since I already tried working in solo and silence/low profile in previous years, and comparing the experience I had before and now is like day and night. Much much better now and it's all thanks to you (｡^u^｡)!

Please look forward to the next dev diary update on Nov. 30.
Have a great pleasant day wherever you are (≧▽≦)!