Status Report #56 (Enemies, PCT GameDevs, & Surviving the Common Cold)

     Bidding farewell to Fish Feaster, my very first game. I don't think I ever learned so much about game development at once. I made mistake after mistake and put all the skills I got from my pet projects to work. I went from a dropped Dragon Ball Z RPG, to a joke pony app, to an unfinished DragCore prototype (which was lost in my first Macbook breakdown). I made a bunch of posts a while back chronicling the Making of Fish Feaster along with a bunch of other related things.

    The more I think about it, the more the game means to me. Every project means a lot to me. Each one taught me so many new things and are helping me grow into the developer I still dream of being. As for anyone following me from the beginning, I hope you can remember these milestones along with me into the future.

   Completed:

• Finished Scripting Half the Enemies
• Altered "Spinner" Monster Code
• Survived Being Sick (Colds Are The Worst)
• Updated Gimp To 2.8 (Increased Productivity)
• Fixed Moonwalking NPC Ponies Glitch
• Made Web Versions of Feed The Plant and Phoenix Wright Forensics
• First PCT GameDevs Club Meeting!
• Caught Up On Homework (No Illness Will Hinder My Progress!)
• Watched All of Gurren Lagann While Sick (Very Inspired and Loving Mechs Now)

     Lessons Learned:

• Take Sick Days Into Account When Scheduling
• All My Games Have a Stronger Sentimental Value Than I Thought
• Helping Other Students Learn GameDev Just Feels Great

     The meeting went really well and I'm feeling really good about how all this Yotes Games biz is going. I also watched a highly recommended anime and read a Dragon Ball Z theory that got my imagination running wild. All good stuff for a growing game designer.

       Along with all that my NPCs don't slide randomly when walking around now. I simply made it so they don't animate until all the direction changing methods are run. This is why putting bugs off can be good. The obvious solution eventually comes to you if you just give your brain a rest. I'll be using the same wandering code for some enemies.

      I can't wait to do much simpler grid based coding. Even with this fix the NPC wandering feels fragile. As if it could glitch out at any moment. Sometimes I even see the sprite twitch as if it's unsure which way it should walk next. It may just be creator vision but it bugs me. If I do grid based 4-way movement I know I can nail it.

     There's also the school's Comic-Con coming up next week and if it's anything like last year's I should learn some really cool stuff and have a great time. Learn some Japanese, listen to an author/artist describe their work, and attend the game design panel (which hopefully won't get cancelled this time). I'm even dressing up this year as a low-budget attempt at a cosplay of the 10th Doctor while my girlfriend dresses as Derpy Hooves. I found everything except the trench coat. I'll remember to take pictures this time so I won't have to wait for official ones 6 weeks later.

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   Downloads:

   This will be the last full week of iOS downloads. It'll be weird posting without those a couple Saturdays from now.

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If it was just the $100 I could manage, but you need a recent Mac to publish legally.

    Spinner had quite a few bugs popping up thanks to all those changes I made to the NPC wander script I copied for it. To keep myself from debugging for a week I decided to make it behave like Drillor, but vertically. It goes back and forth until it hits something. Much simpler this way and visually makes sense for a skinny enemy like it is.

     I can't help but get excited about the projects to come. I know that everything I practice with now will carry over when I make a new Equica game from scratch with a totally new style. I feel like everything I'm making would be perfect if I could just do the grid based combat I'm imagining. For now, there's still a few lessons to learn before wrapping up this project.