PCT GameDevs: Sprite Making Tutorial & Custom Text Boxes

I explained the difference between pixel art styles and different approaches to making your own.

     Every week something is presented at the PCT GameDevs meetings and this week I showed everyone the basics of sprite making and how I made the text boxes work in Unicorn Training. It's nothing I haven't show on this blog before but it was my first time explaining these things to a live audience. It was actually pretty fun to put together and I got some extra practice with my new draw on paper then scan in Paint technique by tracing over an astroknight doodle.

     The meetings still have awkward points as attendance goes down and I occasionally stumble over words when trying to explain my thought process. Although the club is meant for students to teach each other, I'm not much of a teacher myself but more of an example. I've been working on stuff alone since high school so I'm used to the speed of thought and my complex web of information when doing anything. Putting it all into English on a moment's notice can be hard.

Unicorn Training: Populated Game World

     That's it. The final room now has living things in it. The game world is finally alive! I feel like Farore finishing off a world's creation and leaving a triforce behind (I apologize to any readers who find that really nerdy). Every room is filled with the right enemies, treasure chests have items in them, gems are in cave walls, boulders block certain paths, and I even tweaked teleporting a bit to fix some glitches I noticed.

     These next few weeks are going to feel like a roller coaster ride as I rush to finish this game once and for all! It's crunch time baby!

Unicorn Training: Prefabs Being Placed!

     With my homework done for the day I had tons of free time last night to work on Unicorn Training. I finished up the final game object, a breakable boulder, and placed enemy, object, and boss prefabs in the game's overworld so the player can encounter them. Everything for the forest and 1st dungeon is done and I should be able to knock out the other 8 dungeons during the school week. I also coded all the stat boosting items so buffs work in battle now too.

     This has brought my game to a new level of feeling real and all that's left is the small stuff and a bunch of balancing. Expect a tour video later this week if I get time to record one. The hardest coding stuff is done and the end is in sight. It took about 5 years but I'm finally going to finish an RPG!

No Unicorn Training Progress (Distractions Galore)

     Work didn't get done yesterday as I discovered from a classmate there there were two different maze algorithms to code for programming class. Conveniently enough the one I didn't know about happens to be even more complex than the one I spent all Thursday doing. So while I try to figure out queues and stacks, Unicorn Training will have to wait at the sidelines.

    It seems like a bad week to expect much of anything with all the distractions popping up. I've got programming assignments, my usual amount of homework, PCT GameDevs meetings to plan, a pitch to the Gaming & Simulation professors to sweat over, I haven't been to the gym in a week so I need to get back in shape, and on top of it all I just got Smash Bros and desperately want to play more.

     We'll see how much I can push off early in the week so I can at least have the later half dedicated to wrapping up my first big game. School is a pain, but that's the price for job security these days right?

Charizard has become my new main. He's so perfect for my playstyle.