Making My First Debug Menu

      I never needed to use a built-in debug to make a game before because my previous titles were all small and arcade oriented. Making changes for testing was just a matter of changing a bit of code and running the game again. A complex RPG has a lot of things to manage and balance and the quickest way to test everything would be to sidestep rebuilding the game.

      Having a menu to change variables around will make it so that I don't have to change tons of code and keep track of what I'm messing with. Because of so much save data being involved, being able to mess with it all this way is the safest option. I don't want to risk messing up a system so fragile.

     I'll have a video of the debug tool in action once there's more to show. Right now there are just buttons with empty methods and changeable text.

Status Report #31

     Big things happening all week! It's been one of the busiest weeks of my life so far with an entire game being made, lessons learned, research done, and connections made. Nothing happened for Unicorn Quest other than a tweaked idea for combat, but a lot of things happened for Yotes Games as a whole.

     Today I'm attending my college's open house to help inspire freshman and convince parents that game development is in fact a legitimate job. I also had a change of plans and won't be attending summer school like I intended which may lead to Unicorn Quest having an early release.

Check out the Status Report below!

Feed The Plant is on Google Play!

     Feed The Plant (my 2 day challenge) is now available on the Google Play app store! Judging by Candy Shop Catch I can see this game doing well over time. It may even be able to entertain hundreds of people who never heard of me before and get them to try my other games.

Download it on Google Play for Free Today!

     It's coming to Amazon and Samsung too soon. Their review processes take longer than Google's so don't expect anything until next week. This will also be the first game I put on the Samsung market, opening up that door for me later.

      I had a lot of fun doing this and am glad I went through with the challenge. Now I can get back to Unicorn Quest with more confidence and experience than before.

2 Day Simple Game Challenge

Presenting Feed The Plant! The shortest and simplest game I've ever made.

     Flappy Bird is an example of how far a simple game can go. Naturally after a hit like that there are hundreds of imitations. I hear about 60 clones being uploaded a day and scoffed at the idea of joining the frenzy. Countless times I hear "Hey Yotes, why don't you make a game like Flappy Bird?" and just roll my eyes. But then I got to thinking...

     Everyone is rushing for the leftovers of Flappy Bird's explosion, but they all upload the same game. They could at least try playing with the mechanics instead of swapping the sprites. What if there was only one set of pipes and multiple birds pass through it? What if they got eaten by a monster on their way through? What if you wanted that to happen? And after a doodle of a piranha plant eating bird on a note card I got serious.

     I was curious about my ability as a game developer. I see game jams all the time and wonder how people turn things out so quickly. My smallest and fastest project was Candy Shop Catch and even that took over a month. I feel like I could make a game quickly using everything I've learned so far, but is there any proof? I also found the idea of making a Flappy Bird game in under a week to be a great test for myself and a morale booster for spending the rest of the year on Unicorn Quest.

     As I'm typing this I have the finished game running in Unity and my phone. I'm working on promotional materials tonight so I can upload it to Google Play and post a video of it tomorrow.