Status Report #57 (Fish Feaster's Retirement, Finished Enemy Scripts, & Unicorn Quest Brainstorm)

     This week was hectic! School is going nuts with the workload as we approach midterms and PCT GameDevs is really on the school's radar now. In-between all the madness I've been trying to get as much Unicorn Training work done as I can. I also managed to fix the problems I've been having with Unity Web Player builds of my games so people can play my stuff online. Hopefully things can calm down next week so I can get more game development done. But right now there's stuff to do!

     My school's Comic-Con started at 8:30 this morning so I'm very late with posting duty today! Expect a write-up like last year's sometime in the coming week. In the meantime, you can enjoy a status report!

New (Fleshed Out) Unicorn Quest Ideas

     A bunch of ideas for Unicorn Quest came to me last night as I was trying to fall asleep and I couldn't help but keep waking up to make note of them all. These all happen to be either little details I said "I'll figure out later" or mistakes I'm noticing with Unicorn Training's design. Having all these details down has me more pumped than ever to just start that project already!

     I really want to prove what current me is capable of rather than me from a year ago. Sadly I won't be touching it until I start my senior capstone class so it's pretty far off. I have other fun projects to occupy me until then though, so I can wait. Catch all the new brain blasts below the break!

Unicorn Training Item Shops

     Both the item shops are open for business! They work like a charm, allowing you to buy helpful things in exchange for gems. It's as simple as walking in from of what you want and pressing the action button. The price of your selected item hovers over the shop keep's head. I'm currently debating on whether to have item descriptions somewhere or let that be a surprise. At this point I realize items are not a necessity but are more like a bonus to make things easier. Especially the potions. Items and currency kind of just exist for the sake of existing. I'll definitely overhaul it all when making Unicorn Quest.

Unicorn Training Text Is Set In Stone

     I'm going with a Link to The Past style "cut to the chase" story with this game. Being this far downsized and different from the bigger game to come, I simply have enough text to get the story rolling and let the player's imagination combined with NPC blabber fill up the rest of the world and motivations.

     A lot of the text is urging Clover to explore the forest and complete dungeons to learn spells. Those are the things players will be driven to do anyway so the dramatics are kept short and sweet. So sweet that players interested in the characters will have something to think about as the adventure unfolds. Even if someone skips through all the dialogue the goals are obvious enough that there shouldn't be any "What am I supposed to do?" moments. Especially since nothing is blocked off in this small scale open world.

     I will consider this story a success if I get people demanding Clover's next adventure and more information about her mysterious mentor. And just what is this threat he has you preparing for? Why did he leave without you so suddenly? The player will want Unicorn quest to happen as much as I do.

Unicorn Training: NPC Ponies Complete!

     Finally done with these guys after 3 days. I was going to have a bunch more unique sprites but it was taking too long as is so I just started doing recolors of my current 4 designs. Two males, two females, no foals. My excuse for not doing little kid ponies is that Clover is the youngest pony in the forest so she doesn't really have any best friends or sibling figures.

    For the most part NPCs will wander around town, chill in their homes and shops, and an occasional few can be found in the wilderness attending to their business in dangerous territory. None of the ponies in Timber Grove are grand mages like Swirllock or Clover so she really has no deep connections with anypony there and spends all her time studying magic and waiting for the day she travels with Swirllock back to her hometown in Bright Valley.

    After importing them into Unity I'm running into some strange animation errors that I'll need to fix tomorrow because as of typing this, it's 2 AM, this took all day, and I need to sleep.

The Player-Character Connection In Unicorn Training

     Unicorn Training suddenly holds more meaning now. Thanks to the latest Sequelitis Video I've been thinking more about aligning player goals/desires with that of the in-game avatar. When the story matches with what the player wants to do there is an immediate connection. You can relate at least on that level to the character you're playing as and immersion is key to a good experience.

With my new plan of spreading the game into 2 parts I can create a story that matches my feelings as the creator, the player's desire to explore and fight, and Clover's desire to grow stronger and see the world.

Adventures in Equica: Unicorn Training (Unicorn Quest Redesign)

     After a lot of thinking, writing, sketching, and general reorganization of the mind I've settled on a game plan. I will rename my current project and call it Unicorn Training and call it's sequel Unicorn Quest. This first game will act as a prologue to my original idea.

   Making this smaller scale version of the game frees up a lot of possibilities for me while fulfilling the reason I wanted Unicorn Quest to exist in the first place. I'll have a cool RPG under my belt, I'll set the stage for a sequel that expands on the world I want to build, and I'll be able to make said sequel as my graduation project (hopefully with a budget allowing for a collaboration with a certain pixel artist I know of).

   The dragon RPG demo that was going to be my senior capstone project can now get pushed back so I can start it right after Unicorn Training (I can't start my other pony RPG until the first day of mobile gaming class). Then I'll have 2 really cool games to my name (and hopefully an income above my current zero) before starting the two biggest RPGs in my head.

   The problem of scope does not come from hardware limitations but from my desire to be done faster. I've learned so much from getting this far that I really want to start over with my improvements in mind. The improvements are so time consuming and dramatic that I might as well just make a new game, so why not just split my project in 2? One to release now and another for me to do in class senior year. I'll have more time to work on it then and I don't feel my current direction will do the idea justice.

See everything I wrote in my messy design document so far below the break.

Status Report #45 (Smarter NPCs & Shrinking Scope)

     I'm going to start titling these now. It'll be easier to keep track of them this way. It may seem mundane but getting in and out of houses gave me quite a bit of trouble collision wise. Eventually I fund just the perfect spot to put the exit collider, player spawn position, and wall boxes. I should also consider making future houses bigger. I can keep the forest homes small because this town is meant to be somewhat of a dump compared to the big city.

Find out what else I've been working on this week below!

If I Started Over Now... (Unicorn Quest)

     My first Adventures in Equica title isn't even out yet and I can already see some missteps that I would have approached differently. I'm too far in to do much about them now but I will keep these ideas in mind if/when I do a sequel years from now. However, a new idea for the game's structure came to mind and I think I might shrink the game's scope quite a bit to devote more time to polish. I'll need to sleep on it and get some outside opinions (especially yours!) but catch what I have in mind below the break.