alexod

[alexod]

Counting the days and investigating the horrors of modern Britain from the comfort of your own home... #indiegames #solodev #gamedev #monogame #rpgmaker #horrorgaming #aseprite #screenshotsaturday

[alexod]

Gamedev Update Summer 2024

It's been a hot while since I've done a post so thought i'd give a quick overview of what i've been doing.

Long story short i've been busy making actual levels! Namely the overworld hub areas and the dungeons. My aim is to get the main key checkpoints in place so the demo can go from A to B, before filling in the enemies, puzzles and details inbetween.

That being said I've had to implement some further mechanics and features along the way, some of which have been inspired by games i've played over the years. I won't reveal the full nature of the game but here are a few screenshots of what I'm going for:

First draft of the Calendar System

I needed a way for the player to track the hints and clues they find around different places. Outer Wilds has a really good UI for tracking this sort of stuff so I implemented my own interpretation of that as a first draft.

I also intend on uploading YouTube videos (I haven't forgot I promise) on the main channel. It's unfortunately been a very busy few months for me at work, and without sacrificing dev time its been to difficult to dedicate time to the channel.

So yeah, I'm still plodding along. Will hopefully be in a position soon to start really going in on the character and location art.

-AlexOD

[alexod]

Example of my chunking system at work to ease work on the rendering. The foggy window shows what the player sees.

[alexod]

Got round to implementing my first attack. Justine can now bonk people.

[alexod]

Started working on attacks for my game. The little jitter at the end is the animation for connecting with an enemy which would replace the earlier recovery frames. In SH games the frame data on the attacks are quite slow as you're typically controlling an average joe (not Leon Kennedy). But they have this thing where the enemy-hit anim has less frames than the enemy-miss anim to reward you for hitting something. Love lil things like that.

[alexod]

Gamedev Update: I've spent the past month or two learning Blender in order to create a faster way of creating "8 Directional Movement" sprites. Should hopefully speed up the Dev process in future!

[alexod]

Gamedev Update: I've spent the past month or two learning Blender in order to create a faster way of creating "8 Directional Movement" sprites. Should hopefully speed up the Dev process in future!

[alexod]

Gamedev Update: I've spent the past month or two learning Blender in order to create a faster way of creating "8 Directional Movement" sprites. Should hopefully speed up the Dev process in future!

[alexod]

Gamedev Update: I've spent the past month or two learning Blender in order to create a faster way of creating "8 Directional Movement" sprites. Should hopefully speed up the Dev process in future!

[alexod]

Genre reveal for my game and GameDev snippets

GameDev Update!

Imagine a 2.5D Survival Horror inspired by Silent Hill, except it's set in the UK.

And I don't mean London, I'm talking the horror of a desolate post industrial town in 2020s Britain.

For more videos see: https://twitter.com/Aldonn_/status/1681704008811937800?s=20

[alexod]

Rare GameDev update May 2023: Good news and bad news.

Hello all, it’s been a while since I gave a proper update or #screenshotsaturday as to what I’ve been up to with the game. There are several reasons for this which I’ll explain later but essentially the main two reason are 

1. Most of the outstanding framework/refactoring work I’ve been grinding away at, like most software work isn’t really something you can “show off”, and there hasn’t been any art-side work to demo either because of this. 

To give you an example in 2023 I have:

• Refactored the entire rendering (twice cause I’m an idiot) to support transparent views within buildings

• Refactored shadows so they can be cast backwards

• Refactored collision again cause its my most hated gamedev aspect

• Implemented sound/music with spatial audio

• Created a nested GUI/Menu system from scratch

• Developed a full day/night cycle across all maps

• Calendar system

• Questing sytem

• Inventory stuff

• Save/load data stuff 

• Gamepad support

• Weather shaders

2. Life stuff and, again, working on this in my own hours on top of a full time job means that this takes time

--

This leads me to talk about the good and the bad:

The BAD NEWS is that the “BIG ONE” is delayed until further notice, because the GOOD NEWS is I’m going to be working on releasing a smaller scale game made with the same framework first.

So what lead to this decision?

• Uncertainty with releasing a game and how my game engine framework will cope

Due to the nature of one-man development, it’s safe to say there will be bugs and issues that will fly under the radar, which is why with working on a smaller scale game I can highlight these problems before they impact something a more larger scale project.

To give a real life case study, compare Breath of the Wild to Tears of the Kingdom. A lot of the time and hardwork with BotW you can see probably went into getting the damn thing to work, hence why TotK has a lot more going for it gameplay element wise, as they had BotW groundwork to build upon.

• I want to release something in a smaller timespan and build an audience for the “big one”

• Apart from the “Big one” I’ve been fixated on working on this one for a long time now.

• I want to show the flexibility of what I’ve made and potentially make it open source

--

Outside of things like launcher->deployment->release piplines, the framework itself is basically done, and it’s safe to say outside of gameplay specific elements I have all the building blocks to actually make a “game”.

We’re at the point now where I can actually start cracking on with pixel art work again, and I’m looking forward to hopefully showing off the direction the new game is going soon.

TL:DR: The big game I wanted to make is being put on the backburner while I make a smaller game using the same framework that the big one was being made in.

What kind of game? Well... you’ll see in due time.

[alexod]

Belated #screenshotsaturday Got my path finding working for my unit movement system bar a few visual hiccups. Will probably look a bit familiar to Fire Emblem fans.

[alexod]

Don't you just hate it when the Extras won't get off the set? Can always rely on the Sound Guy to get rid of 'em.

[alexod]

My dialogue prototype is coming along nicely.

[alexod]

#ScreenshotSunday few game updates We got: 

-new Lighting system 

-new Animation rig for sprite sheets, supports multiple idle animations

And finally... NPCs! So many Default Dereks...

[alexod]

#screenshotsaturday Sunday edition! Spent most of my winter making an internal tree data structure to support local/world transforms. Wasn't really sure how to show this off so here is Default Derek with a lamp post, light source and a traffic cone stuck to him.

[alexod]

It's been a while but I'm back with another #screenshotsaturday ! Combining @TiledApp 's terrain + automap feature I can generate roads/features in my art styles perspective very quickly. Remember folks work smarter not harder!