Back to Time... er... coding...

And so we return to the Developer Room (Palace? This thing is looking more and more like a Persona dungeon by the day).

Today we broke back into the revised Time Frame Wiring for the Deciduous Delve zone. Which we've eloquently dubbed C1 in the Dev Docs. (This is what happens when you write out the entire skeleton for a game on a notepad before things have names or identities. This was marked C1: Spoopy on the original document I came up with in the car when I was picking the kids up from school in October of 2021.

The Hallway leads to the Gates, which, at the time of writing this are completely wired to the Timeframes, even if those are missing the current code for Traveling through time/space. If you do the math, that's 21 Worlds × 12 Timeframes + 12 Temples or 264 base worlds.

Thank the Gods for the Hierarchy Highlighter or I'd lose my mind. Each scene has to have the core 5 Event Collections added to them for their on load. One loads the Scene. One Loads the Player. One Loads the Parent Scene. One Loads the Sky, and one loads the Lighting.

But each one of these is different depending on the location and time of day. So each time we move to a new level, it takes about an hour on the first Day's Dawn version to customize these elements to that Day. Then, we load each level underneath it, copy the code over, and customize the 22 things that are unique to each Time of Day in that Level. 

The end result are variations in a day which are the same and totally different. Each time of day will feel the same regardless of where you are physically in the world. But each feels very separate from each other. And the locations all feel the remarkably different to each other was well. So it should give a real and memorable sense of Time of Day as you're romping around. 

The key here is:

• The Player is the only thing which is truly real. All of the core coding is on the player object which gets passed between scenes. Whenever you see the main character from third person you're actually seeing a puppet made to look like your current character. The Camera is always the main character. 
• Underneath you is the CORE SCENE. We call these the 99's. Because that made them always appear at the bottom of the list in the hierarchy.
• Atop these core scenes load the Current Scene, which contains all of the elements unique to that timeframe. (Mobs, NPCs, Lights, Sounds, etc.
• And lastly are the 'Cutscene' levels. Our cutscenes are built like Shadow Plays in an empty level. The events have been placed where they should load. But when you are looking at a cutscene you've actually teleported to a totally empty level which loads everything above this into the scene. This way, we can code WHATEVER we need to happen in that scene without actually manipulating the base environment. It keeps us from breaking things while creating. (Which is a very real thing that happens all the time)

So I'm on Zone 5. With 16 left to go. I can get one or two of these done a day. Which means we're looking at about two weeks for me to complete the wiring. 

Each zone has between 1 and 4 Teleport Towers. I'll have to spend a couple of days custom coding the 21 Towers to have a modular 'Space' travel event which leads to the right location based on the Time Stat on the character. That will take me about... three days to code. And then a day or two to swap the towers out in the zones 250+ times.

I suspect we're looking at August 1st for the completion of the cleanup tasks, and the creation of the beginning of the game. Which is about three weeks from today.

Not terrible. The benefit is, that anyone on the testing list will get a 'Romp Around' build to go parkour through Time and the Levels and see everything in the sandbox BEFORE content starts going into it. 

I want to give the QA folks a chance to start finding things I've missed or messed up on which I can fix inbetween those days where I'm working on Story. Narrative progress takes a larger toll on me than Development, because I'm super critical of the story I create. 

A long lost friend once told me "Brandon you're not allowed to work on the Story, which you're good at and enjoy, until you've completed the Architecture." and it's something I live by.

Story, for me, is really the whole goal of this experience. I've spent two years on a Canvas to tell that Story ON, and I'm about to be able to play in that space. So getting through the end of this design and implementation phase is a big deal for me.

Let's look at the Tally...

Action? ✅(Combat, Magic, Dungeons, and Bosses)
Adventure? ✅(Parkour, Puzzles, Secrets, and Randomness)
Role Playing? ✅ (Story, Chances to Change that Story, Emotions...)
Game? ✅ (I mean... Made in Unity is a mark of Quality... right?!)

We're on our way to building the game I always wanted to exist. The game I check Steam for weekly, but which I told myself I would have to make if I ever wanted to play it.

So as I enter the Dog Days of Summer, I'll be moving into the part where you really get to SEE the game unfold.

SPREADING THE EXPERIENCE

I sortof... live... out of my Remarkable Tablet. Right now I'm in the process of doing the 'How Many Things Happen in Each Zone Based on Size and Location in the Story?' Matrix. Afterward I'll do the same thing for the size and scope of the Temples as well.

I'm correlating data, using Strategy Guide analysis from about 25 Action RPGs from the n64 through Wii Era, and trying to create a balanced number for both.

Remember, that like Pokémon or Zelda, the content is gated by the tools you've obtained ONLY. So each zone, regardless of the order its in, needs to have a layered set of events which cover ALL of the mechanics in the game. And because achievement hunters don't like arbitrary, they need a system they can calculate through as they play. So our spreading of content needs to be formulaic. This means that we also have to spend time at the crafting of each zone building the content in from the ground up, so that it was always there. If you staple things on a the end the player can feel that. Like... putting expensive ketchup on a mediocre meatloaf. If the Umami of a game isn't cooked in, they players will know. (I'm looking at YOU Final Fantasy XVI!).

Okay, I have one more time frame to wire from Deciduous Delve before I can get some lunch and continue my slog through the end of XVI, and then do some chores like a normal human.

-𝓖𝓪𝓶𝓮 𝓸𝓷 𝓕𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓼!