I have done some this and that in the past, but haven't had enough focus to finish anything. So I tried this game jam thingy. It's been interesting and surely now I feel much more focused. Although I have also much more knowledge in game development than I had 2 years ago, when I started. My biggest problem has been time. Now I have time since I started new studies in game development and I am now a full-time student. Now to the actual jam. I had a few ideas concerning freedom and free types of things. I started to go through my assets that I had in my asset store. Hoping that I could get some sort of heureka -moment. And I got one.

Base Game Idea: 

Somewhere in the old west a group of bank robbers have been living the life. But like most of the ooutlaws, they get caught by the sheriff and his men and are waiting to get hanged in local prison. John McCracken is a man that outlaws then call. He is a specialist for criminals to free them from prisons. He has freed a lot of prisoners over the course of his life and knows a lot of ways to free the prisoners.

Prototype goal: 

Player enters a small town. The prisoners are in the jail in the sheriffs office. there are 2 prisoners to be freed. Player can start shooting the npc's but that means that the prisoners are separated to 2 different locations , making the game a bit harder. Also hostile NPC's will have an alerted state so that they will shoot on site. This means that it is wiser for player to use some tactics before trying to free the prisoners. This game will contain small puzzles to make it easier to free them.

DAY 1:

Used a demo scene from the Synty assets I had to short-cut in graphics. Then created the player controls and shooting and damage mechanism. Started working on animations for npc's and downloaded basic movement animations from Mixamo.com and incorporated those to the models in the assets and made the first animations and movement for the npc's. Created also a basic UI. This is something that the core game doesn't need to function so I will be adding things to it when I need to.

DAY 2:

Started to do some basic AI for NPC's. Navmeshes was a new thing for me, so this took me a while learn how to use these, and how to make them usefull anyway. In my first set of tests I noticed that making all the characters run a certain course from point a to be and then to c that looked absolutely stupid. So I decide to try if I could somehow randomize things a bit. So NPC's now have a system that when in wander mode, they will randomly take spot and go towards it and when in the spot they will take a new spot. Instantly felt more alive. Then I needed patrols. Created patrolling points and some way to make them notice if player interacts them in some way. So I made so that player can now shoot them, and they will shoot back.

DAY 3:

I feel like this is going to be heavy on NPC AI, so I have been tinkering around and polishing a bit the first AI code. went a bit sidetracked also when i wanted to have doors that open and close. But since I started I had to finish it. First I thought that this was something that core doesn't need, but I noticed that I do need a way to interact with objects in the game so this was a good start. First I thought tht creating trigger colliders was the easiest way to go, but then I decided to check out raytracing. this could be easier in the future if designed wisely. At this moment I also started to doubt if I can finish this in 2 weeks. But I reminded myself that I have been making this for only 3 days and I feel like I am quite far already. Most of the work ahead is mostly code, and that is something I love to do.

This looks amazing! The title is especially good.

DAY 4:

Got bit sidetracked again. I felt that I want to set some tone or mood. So I started to find some suitable music and soundfx. Found music and couple of soundfx. Also for the mood I took lighting down a bit and added some graphic FX to make it feel more like a westerny small town in some desert.

Also, Got some ideas on the Main Character backstory. He's an antagonist who frees criminals from prison. He's in it mainly for the money, but has also some limits who he will save. Bank Robbers who haven't killed anyone is an easy choise, but rapists or people who has killed an entire village will be in his no-list. He thinks that they deserve what's coming for them. The gallows. (This is something that I will consider a players choice. They will pay nicely, but would you choose to save a killer of 10 men for money? This could also have a fame meter of sorts that will bring same kind of missions. More thinking needed on that )

Yoo this looks super nice. I love the assets and the concept. I'm also trying to work with A.Is and Navmeshes for the first time as well. Will definitely keep up with this, good luck!

You're so far along already I'm exited to see how this turns out! also love that you play as an antagonist, very cool idea :D

DAY 5:

Semi day-off. Made some corrections in code for opening doors. Now every door needs only to drop the code in the inspector on door object and it functions and interacts with player when it has the right animation on it. Did some thinking. What the code needs? Patrolling NPSs need to have an alerted and an aggressive state. Triggering the jail doors or entering the sheriff's office should trigger the aggressive state for guard npcs and maybe non-aggressive should have a fleeing/hiding script when the shooting starts. (at the moment doesn't feel easy, but I am confident that some way can be learned.) On the other hand, I knew this would be heavy on NPC AI. At the moment I am not sure how they escape. There's a train that could be used for that, but I don't know how much time it would take to make it work, so I need a backup plan for a simpler escape.(codewise) Also, I promised puzzles. I have seen some of these https://networkscience.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/game-dependency-graph-the-secret....

Puzzles are hard to make (well for me at least as a first timer) and I need to be aware that complex puzzles take time to make. I probably start with something simple but need some planning.

Edit: I did actually do other things today. I made my first quest -kind of notification in the start of the game, and my start screen.

Day 6:

A day-off. Needed some time to relax.

Day 7:

After a relaxing day-off, i decided to learn some new things. So I went through a course for RPG quest system creation. As such it is not for this game, but I was thinking that maybe when modified enough it could be usefull. Also It is something that I wanted to learn anyway. 

So I got it working. Now I am not sure how far I can or should take this quest system, but at least it works as a guide what should be done in the level.

This will help player to do what is needed. In this I can do quest chains and parallel quests with the main quest. At least this is usefull when I need to consider making a practice level.

my weekend was a bit slow on development. Had an issue in family so I didn't have much time to focus. But today I got to the point where my basic quest system is working. This needs a lot of work in the future, but the basics are there. Tested also different kind of quest triggers. First, trigger from UI button. This starts the quest chain.

Second Trigger was made when someone is killed. In this case when sheriff dies, the sheriff quest get 1/1 and stays there for 2 seconds and gives a new quest. This also triggers now an alerted state to the cowboys that are sheriffs men. They will start shooting in the same second sheriff dies.

now the triggers are on the doors as an item trigger which triggers when interaction button is used. After both doors are opened, next item in quest chain starts.

This is the last quest in the chain. in the prototype the prisoners doesn't follow, but in the future they should. Player is going to defend them until getting to the train. 

Lastly, I made a triggerSpot where the area triggers something. in this case the level end, but can be used almost anything quest-wise. 

At this point. "all" I need to do anymore is to handle the NPC AI better. so this is what I will be doing the rest of the time. And if I get it done sooner, I will be tweaking everything else.

DAY (I don't know) :

Been polishing more so that it looks like a game. Sadly the prototype is very short. But It is in a point now that I can start adding more quests and polish the AI a bit more. Trying not to make a overly long though, because I feel it would ruin the experience. The overall feel of the game is there. It is a working game though. it has a start, a middle part and an end.

EDIT: plus some weird thing I forgot there. I am hoping to clean this up tomorrow. Some of the animations are also a bit weird, but they doesn't affect playability at this point. I think I have the major prototype machanics ready. Rest of it is polishing and trying to make the level a bit longer.