Day 20 of 100 [Alex_ADEdge]

On By Alex_ADEdge

Day 20 of 100

This past 10 days wasnt as productive as Id hoped but I still managed 14h and 40mins of gamedev.

Below are the new and improved stats for the challenge so far!

 

I’ve decided to break stats up a bit differently from this post onwards. I’ve split podcasts into their own category, whereas before I was counting them for ‘Misc’. I did this because misc should count for gamedev that is any game project other than dogeDIG or the Trooper – ie the research into setting up a multiplayer game with Unity I’ve been doing. I’ve also decided that podcasts don’t count towards the ’30mins’ minimum in a day, otherwise I could just sit back and count listening to a podcast as my gamedev for a day and I don’t feel like thats productive. So why include podcasts at all? They’ve been pretty crucial in my gamedev recently, especially for dogeDIG. I’ll go into more detail below, but they’re a great learning resource so they’re worth including!

Note – Ive gone back and updated my stats to the new format in my Days 1-10 post, or you can view them here.

My goals for days 11-20 were:

  1. dogeDIG: Get a better idea of the scope of the game and build up that area of the GDD. Just in general research areas I’m stuck on.
  2. Trooper/Character Design: Rig the character, do some poses and finish the concept phase (and get into the ZBrush part of the tutorial if theres time)
  3. Misc: Research into multiplayer setups with Unity, prep for the upcoming Ludum Dare 41

Progress Report dogeDIG

As mentioned above, I’ve been doing a lot of research for dogeDIG this past 10 days, so theres not much to show in terms of progress or shiny pictures or gifs or anything. I also struggled a bit because it wasn’t until day 15 that I really settled on any goals which certainly effected drive and direction. What I have discovered during this challenge is the more I delve into the work of this game the more I’ve felt I need to step back to get a better footing and grasp on the design of it. The podcasts I’ve been listening to have been a big help in terms doing this. I’ve been selectively listening to the ones that focus on areas I’m needing to work on and then diving into research and documentation. The most productive one was on being strategic about the scope of your game. It got me working on identifying and analysing the hooks for dogeDIG (parts of the game/concept that hook peoples interest before they’ve even seen the game), the scope (exactly what the game entails in its development) and most importantly the MVP (Minimal Viable Product) which focuses on the 4 core elements of the game and what the minimum feature-set is to fulfil that.

For dogeDIG I’ve determined the 4 MVP categories and difficulties are as follows:

-Mechanics (Medium)

-Story (Low)

-Aesthetics (Medium)

-Technology (High..?)

The best examples when looking at these MVP categories are Zelda (Ocarina of Time) and Tetris. Youll find that Zelda is High in all categories, needing heavy/complicated game mechanics, a huge amount of story, lots of work for aesthetics (music/environments/sfx/characters) and high use of technology (many inputs, 3D rendering) whereas Tetris has simplistic game mechanics, no story at all, minimal aesthetics and relatively simple 2D requirements for technology and only one or two inputs. A good document that goes into detail about all of this is <here>.

So nothing shiny to look at for dogeDIG this time, but aiming to get into more design again soon now that Ive got a better grasp on a few things!

Progress Report (Trooper/Game Art Character)

I’ll keep this bit short, since Ive rambled on enough so far. But I didnt meet the goals Id set for the trooper character for this 10 days. I wanted to get the model rigged and the concept phase done, but barely got started on the concept.

It is rigged however! So now I can pose/animate where needed:

While I have started the concept phase I’ve also pivoted direction a bit for this project as well. I’ve decided that instead of going with this 100% Old Republic trooper design I’ll customise the whole thing and make it a bit more unique to the time – which came to me in a series of brainwaves when I was thinking about the era/story this trooper is from. So the next step is to modify the base design a bit more for a ‘unique base soldier armour set’ and then concept up the troop captain character I have in mind.

 

Now its time to get back to the game I’m working on for Ludum Dare 41 (a 72 hour gamejam) which will take up the next few days! You can see the themes I voted for <here>