Latest Update!

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It’s time for another round of the latest 3 things I’ve been doing!

  1. After a reminder from T3nshi’s latest update on his project, I finally set up source control for GMS2, so I can start doing regular commits. (I’ve already gotten into one bad state already going through the Heartbeast lectures – and while he kindly provides a version of the source for each lecture, it meant losing my notes I’d been taking in the comments along the way).
  2. Started tackling FriendlyCosmonaut’s cutscene tutorials in hopes to begin sharing silly gifs in upcoming weeks (like this guy does, heh).
  3. I started the #100dayproject, doing #100daysofgamedesign – with daily updates on Instagram (piratecatlabs) and semi-regular updates on Twitter (also piratecatlabs, perhaps unsurprisingly). Some more granular notes on progress:
    1. I’ve committed to finishing up a rough tileset for the prototype by next weekend, which I think I’m on track for. (I want to begin reskinning what I’ve built in the Heartbeast tutorials so it feels more like my own project!)
    2. I’ve made a few more character designs! Here’s where our three main characters are currently at (and I’m feeling good about the direction) 
    3. I’ve started on a title card illustration and keep doodling little objects here and there in my spare time…
    4. …which also leads into: I started my first enemy design (still need to work on its attack, though) 

Anyway, that’s all for now!

Work is still going, I’m just terrible at posting

/ amy / Leave a comment

Admittedly, Fall/Winter are the busiest times of year for my consulting business, and I’ve got two excellent clients who’ve been keeping me pretty busy – so that doesn’t leave a lot of mental bandwidth for other creative endeavors. I’ve been quietly making progress on various things in the background, and would like to get back into the habit of blogging progress a bit more regularly.

Following the brilliant lead of the Village Monsters devblog, let me update you on the 3 most interesting things I’ve been working on:

  1. I’m mostly done with uheartbeast’s excellent ARPG course (waiting for a few final modules to be published that are relevant to my interests, actually – guessing those are going up within the next week or two, hooray!)
  2. I’m still trying to solidify the art style for this game. My favorite version so far – v3 – is also really detailed and probably far too ambitious for a game I want to make and release myself. I’ve been experimenting with another few styles, and am kinda leaning towards a simpler style that feels more Earthboundy and is maybe easier to generate the assets I need, but I worry it’s maybe too informal. Then again, I’m also still figuring out the tone of the game (serious? spooky? funny?) and I like the feeling I get looking at v6. Also, despite my best efforts designing a color palette, I’ve found that I really love Crabby’s Cabana-64 palette much more than all of my prior efforts (much more saturated and vibrant than mine!) – so I think I’ll be rolling with that one for now, though I may take another stab at making or modifying a palette again, soon.
  3. Generally brainstorming and designing the puzzles for the first dungeon, and how they tie into the rest of the world. It’s something I’ve been trying to spend a few minutes on each day, and helping me to solidify the world and the interesting objects and people within…

Hope everyone’s had a great weekend, and looking forward to updating you next week!

Devlog – 1.1

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Welp, I realized my devlog last week failed to, uh, include any actual updates. This is some of the work I’ve done so far over the last couple months as I’ve learned new tools and skills.

I’m still working through this awesome ARPG GMS2 course, so there’s that. (Last I checked, I was at 40%!). Luckily, it’s probably about 70-80% of what I need to rig the demo, though I’m sure the rest will be a right-pain-in-the-butt.

I’ve found GMS2 pretty easy to use – I totally grok finite state machines and scripting object behaviors, and it manages all of the crap I’m not good at, like actually managing resources and the nitty-gritty stuff. I still have a hard time with, say, recursion and more complex behaviors, but there’s a ton of scripts freely-shared by the community and lots and lots and lots of great tutorials.

(throwing the rest behind a Read More tag because there’s a lot!)

Continue reading →

Devlog 1 – for As-Yet-Untitled Game

/ amy / Leave a comment

Heyoo! I started building a video game.

I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: signing up for crap-tons of Udemy classes about various topics (how to use the game maker engine, pixel art, animation, and music composition) while also playing around with different ideas and game mechanics.

All I know is I’m building a quirky retro sci-fi LoZ: Link’s Awakening-type of ARPG, but that’s…all.

For now, this is probably going to be tracking my progress with the different courses and as I work on my first demo, but hopefully, over time, that will turn into something cool.

Catch ya on the flip side, friendos.