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My First Game Jam: Summer 2019

Hosted by ludowoods, lysander, Adrienne Lombardo · #MyFirstGameJam
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My First Game Jam: Summer 2019 community

[Devlog] ʕ ᵔᴥᵔ ʔ Two Pines Sanctuary ʕ ᵔᴥᵔ ʔ

A topic by twobabyteeth created Jul 11, 2019 Views: 443 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 5
twobabyteeth5 years ago (1 edit) (+1)


Hello, You!

Welcome to my lil devlog. This is my first game and thus my first jam as well. I'm doing this (dev, art, audio) solo and have just about zilch experience in everything so I'm just gonna keep things really simple in hopes that I will finish!

Game Concept

Two Pines Sanctuary* is a wildlife sanctuary RPG. As one of the sanctuary's rangers, your job is to rescue and rehabilate sick, injured or orphaned animals until they are ready to be released back into the wild. It's inspired by this game - Wild Thornberrys' Australian Wildlife Rescue - that I used to love playing when I was a kid.

*Working title - TBH, I just googled 'stardew valley farm name ideas' and picked my favourite from the lot.

Goals

I just want to be able to finish 1 round of game play. Briefly, that includes:

  1. Player finds injured animal
  2. Player treats animal's injury
  3. Player tends to animal (food, water, shelter) over X days
  4. Animal's health improves overtime until healed
  5. Player releases animal back into the wild

Tools

  • Art: Aseprite
  • Engine: Unity

Thanks for reading and all the best, everyone!

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twobabyteeth5 years ago (2 edits)

Getting Organised

I spent the first day of the jam consolidating the gameplay and breaking that down into tasks. I then used Notion to organise them so I'd be able to stay on top of things. (I've allowed duplicating the board as a template in case it's helpful for anyone!)



Back to Basics

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't have prior experience in game development. So, to better equip myself, I thought I'd start by going through the 2 RPG tutorials that Unity provides:

  1. Creator Kit: RPG
  2. Ruby's Adventure: 2D Beginner

They are both super easy to follow and provide you with all the assets. Creator Kit: RPG requires no coding while Ruby's Adventure breaks down the meaning of every single line of code written. I definitely feel way more comfortable about Unity and have a clearer idea on how to execute now. Here are some GIFs of what I made with the tutorials:




Actually Getting Started

I started with the art so that I'd get a clearer sense of the game's style/vibe. I knew I wanted to go with pixel art and got to work in Aseprite. I took forever before I finally managed to draw something that resembles a hedgehog and then, took even longer to figure out how to animate its legs - the animation itself was easy but I sTILL have no clue how to draw a run cycle... Oh well, at least I now have a working sprite! It was also at this point that I decided to use free assets as a placeholder and work on the development first, lest I get too consumed with making assets and end up having no playable game.

 

Scene #1

I decided to start with the rescue scene (ranger finds hedgehog and brings it back to the sanctuary). So far, I've:

  • Tiled a scene with rule-based tiles
  • Added my hedgehog sprite into the scene
  • Added a controllable player + animated them
  • Handled collision
  • Figured out how to set up the camera etc. for a pixel perfect look - I found this Twitter thread helpful!

Assets Used

What's Next?

I think I'm going to work on the Inventory system next. Neither of the tutorials I did covered this so lots of googling awaits!

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ScPlaysSubmitted5 years ago

I like your game idea, and I think your style of organizing your to-do's is pretty nice. I think you might benefit from creating a PERT chart or a roadmap with the pieces you have in there. If this really is your first go at making a game, you'll want to learn early on how to manage tasks in a predetermined fashion. Speaking from experience, it helps keep you on track, even if the next step is doing something you don't really want to do (like drawing tiles, my least favorite part of dev), otherwise you may end up only doing what seems "fun" to you. It'll put you way ahead of anyone else here. ;) https://online.visual-paradigm.com/tutorials/pert-chart-tutorial/

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twobabyteeth5 years ago

Thanks for the great tip! I checked out your log and got a better idea of how to apply a PERT chart in the context of game dev. I will definitely put one together the next time I work on a similar project, especially now that I have a better idea of how long each task roughly takes.

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ScPlaysSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Very nice! If you try to get a CS or software dev degree that'll be one of the most important things you learn about, so use that info wisely!

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WudgeousSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Your "Introduction" forum header is already so crisp and cute, and I used to play games like that all the time. :)  Count me in for following your progress.

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twobabyteeth5 years ago (1 edit)

Picking It Back Up

I've been preoccupied with real life and haven't worked on the jam much admittedly. I still am determined to finish it and will be dedicating the next few days to going all out!!

Since the last post, I have finished coding the Inventory System with the help of these two tutorials. Yes, the ranger can pick up objects now! Quick gif below:


What's Next?

I'll be working on expanding the scene next i.e. the sanctuary's HQ. Hopefully, I'd be able to give another quick update later today.

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twobabyteeth5 years ago (2 edits) (+1)

What's New

I've been working quite a bit on the game this afternoon and have added 1) Dialogue and 2) Quests. I have been using this channel and have found that he's really good at breaking down what each line of code does. Would definitely recommend checking him out, especially if you're working on an RPG in Unity as well.

 

What's Next?

Because I have been using different tutorials for different functions, I'll be working on linking up all the code next. For e.g., item picked up from Quest goes into Inventory System, rather than disappearing. After that, I'm gonna give myself a break from dev and work on some pixel art + UI!

- - - - -

Day 12 Continued...

I've created my own tilemap (hence the change in bg colour) + pixelled the bandage sprite that I needed!


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