Day 4 Progress, AKA "Enemy Design......SORT OF":
Today was another non-starter for me haha 😅 Another active day that took away some dev time! It's good though, I've been having some fun out the past few days but I do feel like it strangely balances out my hyper-productive days earlier in the jam. I'm pretty far in development now and feeling really good- I need to remember not to worry about taking a few little breaks!
Downside to all that going out I've been doing, though: today's wrap-up post isn't going to be very interesting. I did finally start the enemy design process, thank goodness. I decided that I was going to focus on making a 2D sprite enemy for this game, as opposed to a 3D modeled enemy, both because of my current 3D modeling skill level and my lack of experience in implementing 3D animations in Unity. I am a bit experienced, however, with the 2D animation process, and have been drawn a lot to the aesthetics of older games like Doom which used 2D sprites in a 3D environment. There's something so minimalist and scary at the same time about those enemies. I'd like to access that same sort of feeling for this game, hoping that my enemy can rely on look and feeling to scare the player rather than particularly advanced movements or visual aesthetic. Anyways, to avoid rambling, let me cut to the chase and show off what I've got going so far:
So, he's definitely in the very early stages here: I just wanted to get the lines down for him and block out the colors. I have lots more to do, specifically blood wise. He, his axe, and his bag are going to be Very blood soaked by the time I'm done, haha.
I was very torn earlier on whether i wanted the enemy to be human or some spooky entity. The more I thought about it, though, the more I liked the idea of playing directly into the aesthetic of the environment I've built. Something about all the pine trees and the red house feels very cabin-esque, and what better to bring that to life than a murderous lumberjack?
And I know what you're thinking. "Quinn, this guy looks super harmless." HE DOES, right? I really wanted to create a character who looked as happy as the environment he's in, while being a total murdering mad man. I'm going to add little details to show who he really is (again, namely, the blood soaked bag, axe, and clothes), but I like the idea of putting out a game that seems like the sweetest little "dog playing fetch" simulator and having it be super sinister at a closer look. Hopefully the happy-go-lucky murderer lumberjack brings that all together!
I have a background in illustration, and I gotta say, knowing that my illustrated character is going to be the enemy in my game is actually super exciting. For some reason I've never actually used my illustrations as sprites or in-game characters before, which I want to change. So yes! I'm feeling great about where the enemy is headed. Here's to tomorrow:
- Finish colors on this guy
- Draw out a basic three step walk cycle (I'm thinking really basic: the above pose as the in between, one with his left leg raised, one with his right leg raised) and bring those animations into Unity
- Replace the cube with him, implement some code that has him standing stationary until the player triggers his chase mode
Once that's all done, I'm going to feel so much better about where the game is headed. The above goals that I wasn't able to dive into today are my second priority, especially the red "you died" screen and the timer.
I hope everyone had a great dev day!
Also, I'd like to thank everyone again for reading and express just how cool it was to be featured in the first devlog feature email! I'm having such an awesome time this jam, so anyways. Let me avoid getting corny. Thank you guys.