Unicorn Training: (Load & Save) File Select Menu

     A file select screen exists! Players can have their save data occupy one or all of the available slots. Player will select a file then push the forward arrow to act or push the back button to return to the previous screen. In the end, it's a lot more elegant than what I had in mind a few weeks ago. I scrapped the idea of custom file names to save time on a virtual keyboard even though my school maze project had me make a keypad with similar behaviors.

Ideas For Building Characters (Mobile RPG)

     I spent a lot of time looking at a bunch of Pokemon theories (non-creepypasta ones) that explained a lot of logic games in the game's world. things like how the world came into existence, how one monster can become another through generations of breeding/mutation, and why there is a limit to how many moves can be used. It's a way to get me thinking about how to make my own world full of characters that don't feel like generic stand-ins.

    You can see a few standout videos I saw on Gnoggin's YouTube channel and catch what I took away from the experience as a gamedev below the break.

Unicorn Training Dungeon Selector

     I finished up another pretty big piece of the game, the way players choose which dungeon to play through. Now the global variables that control that stuff are accessible in game. I added the ability to quit and be taken back to home from the pause menu or death menu.

     When players approach the crystal ball the action icon changes and pressing it brings up the choices of Dungeons, Bosses, and Random. Dungeons brings up all the dungeons you can play in any order, bosses brings up the boss fights you can do again, and Random makes it so that each dungeon room you enter is randomized based on ones you've beaten before.

     The diamonds are colored in for the dungeons you already beat while the others are grey. Pushing the page buttons shifts between the 9 dungeons so players can choose to play any level they want from the start.

Improving Coding Skills

     One big thing that keeps popping up as I work is how much more organized I'll have to be for the next project. After every project I learn to prepare the next to take some concept into consideration when making connected scripts and folder hierarchies. Every code library is neater than the last and now that I've had practice with an RPG scale game's code, I can make a much more organized workspace.

     This is a big deal because Unicorn Training is currently a mess behind the scenes. Debugging is tedious because I have to alter every instance of copy/pasted code when I should have central scripts multiple objects can point to. I should have been more careful about the variable names and comments because now when I go to fix a script from 6 months ago I can't tell what all the pieces do.

     I had to Frankenstein a bunch of code together and patch on tons of fixes I never thought of. I will have a better start next time if I keep all these things in mind. In some ways my code is better than ever, but in others it's atrocious and needs to be improved. It's that constant drive to always do better.