Yesterday brought many upgrades to the game… so today I decided to record a little runthrough of the 3 levels in the game (yes, I realise I am not picking up all the extra lives 😮 )
Hope you enjoy watching it, and dont hesitate to post a comment 🙂
Will be adding more stuff to the game throughout this Sunday 🙂 I’ve already created a volume-slider for the music voume, and it will of course be implemented in the next update of the game 🙂
Until next time! cheerios! :p
Hello all…
Let me tell you about today! Today was a whole day of struggling with the code for the game, error upon error, and me being a total noob!! I had to throw down the towel and surrender at one point, went and did my groceries… On the way back I did some thinking… came back home and tested it…
BLAH! Didnt work 😉
I didnt give up though, so I kept working on it… for about 5 hours until I figured it out! 😀
hehe… 5 horrible hours! but hey, its done, I figured it out, and now my game has a persistant score and life counter across levels, but please let me know if you find any bugs in relation to this, as my system is probably not as cleverly designed as it coulda-shoulda been 🙂
I also watched a few tutorials that taught me how to work some more with the prefabs and instances/clones… which allowed me to get back to my game and add in a little visual feedback in the form of particle effects when you pick up a Bonus Item, or enter the end of level portal 🙂
So please, get right in, try it out, and post your score here for all to see! 🙂
Hi all…
From figuring out how to do the extra life thingy, I managed to get my head around how to work with a score for the player, and gaining points from picking up the gems/coins… I also did a bit of an overhaul on the 3 levels, adding more fire thingies and more gems and tried to make the lifts a bit more interesting to use, by adding in the gems in rows while you’re travelling… giving you a POP POP PPPPPPOP!!! feel as you use the lifts… at least the first time 😉
Now I just need to figure out how to make it so that the scores and lives do not reset everytime a new level loads… by the end of tomorrow, I should have that nut cracked! ;D
Ooh, and before I forget… I changed it from being a streamed game (it would load as soon as the first map was finished, but sometimes this resulted in some problems for slow downloaders since some items would be missing from the next map… I’ll get it sorted, but for now I have changed it to a non-streaming format, so it will download all of the game before actually starting to play.)
On a more positive note though… Platform Textures are back! Yay! ;D The game looks semi-reasonable, once again 🙂 … but just semi 😉
A bit of a large update was made today… I learned alot of new ways of working with the Unity3d engine, and as a result I have now figured out how to make the BonusGems play a sound even after I have destroyed them. So no more laggy feeling of running through Coins/Gems and hearing the pop instantly but watching the gem disappear after half a second, or the sound getting interrupted because the gem disappeared.
I’ve also added a little Lives Counter at the bottom left of the screen, please let me know if its working on your end, as I had ALOT of difficulties figuring out how to place the text and having it scale depending on the user’s screen-resolution.  Since there is now a visible cue telling you how many lives you have left, I decided to also add in a new Bonus item, the Extra Life! It looks like the Gem/Coin thing, except its green 😉 (at least for now! :p )
I am aware that the lives reset to 3 everytime you switch map, this will of course get fixed once i fully understand how to keep specific objects alive or prevent them from resetting between map-loads 🙂
Then you will most likely also notice that there has been made some changes to the text… and thats because I have figured out how to work with fonts and create custom GUI (Graphical User Interface… the stuff you click on and look at :p the menu thingy)
Oh, and I also managed to do a little concept drawing of what I am aiming to make my Main-Character in this little game, for when I figure out how to do 3d models AND animate the darn thing 🙂 Baby steps… baby steps 😉 I’ll get there eventually, but for now my priority is on the game design, rather than the graphics… 🙂
I had fun drawing this. I was inspired by Mario and most of the short/stubby characters with big heads and a cute appearance.. Havent thought of a name yet, so feel free to let me hear your suggestions 🙂
So all in all, a nice productive day 🙂
Helloes All 🙂
As you might have noticed, I have now added a little graphical button next to the link that leads to the game demo… Hopefully this will help new users in quickly finding the game to play it 🙂
Also, today I did some learning, which resulted in me being able to finally make a proper End of Level Portal that can be reused in all of my levels (Thanks to the PreFab system and a nice scripting tutorial 😀 )
There are now a total of 3 playable levels/maps in the game, none of which are complete, but at least they work in terms of transfering you from level to level 🙂
Also did some playing around with the moving platforms, to add a little bit of variation to the map. (the 3rd map is reverse of the previous maps, meaning you will need to make your way DOWN, instead of UP… pretty easy :p )
Anyways, all in all, not a super productive day, but still got some stuff done on the game :D. In my defense, I did get home from work about 1 hour later than usual, due to having participated in a First Aid course at work which will hopefully grant me a Certificate in First Aid… A nice little upgrade from what i was taught 10 years ago in the army 😉
Ello all…
I figured it was time to show you guys a little video link to let you know what you’re missing, if you never actually tried playing the game or even went to see it 😉
Hello all
Yep, new day has started… yesterday ended with a bit of a frustration seeing as I had lost the majority of my work for the day (read: evening… 😉 )
So before reading the rest of the post, here is a favorite song of mine from a very talented artist by the name of Tomac, and his song title is … yep, you’ve guess it… Or maybe you didnt… Another Day
http://www.thesixtyone.com/tomac/song/another+day/57253/
I tried embedding it, but i couldnt get it to work, so you’ll have to click it and open as a new page/tab and listen there 😉
Today I watched a few tutorials, specifically on the subject of Instantiating prefabs, which basically means that I now know how to make a BonusCoin object or a SkullTrap that I can copy paste onto my map in several locations… edit its properties on the original Prefab, and then every other copy of it that i have on my map… will automatically be updated…
So no more having to manually add in any last-minute changes to the 30 odd bonusCoins I had plastered all over my map… one at a time 😉
Nope , Now I can change and fix it in a split second and have all of them sorted in no time 🙂
So I added in a red box with a bit of flame… touch it and you die… meaning you end up back at the start of the map… It’s a bit of a challenge added at least… first enemy of the game.. the Flaming Skull Box!!! duuuuhdooooh!!! <- that was supposed to be a scary whilst also introductory sound 😛 … Fail … So I made a sound effect in SFXR instead, just a temporary fiery-death-8bit sound 😉
As you can see, something went wrong with the platform colours yesterday… They seem to have lost their textures, and since I originally added all the platforms in a NON-PREFAB way, having to change them all, is not something im willing to do just yet, since I would rather work on new additions to the game.
So this morning before work meant the addition of the ebil skull trap! Enjoy! and keep the suggestions coming please 🙂
Yep, my little game thingie has now reached a new peak in its career! … well.. okay maybe not, but at least now I’ve managed to add in the functionality of actually being able to reach the end of a level, and then have it load the next level 😉
Sadly, at the moment, there are no next levels, but its a start 😉
Also, poor Loopy has had to give up his existance… Alas, poor Loopy, you will be sorely missed… (Actually, You wont… You ran way too slow, and it was just too easy the way you superjumped!) … 😛
Naw, the real reason I pulled out Loopy, or the Multi-Character system is simply because, it felt too much like the old blizzard game The Lost Vikings…
Great game, but not what I wanted to make at the moment 😉
So pop on in, give Lerpz a little spin, make it to the top, check out the End of Level sparkly portal and the snazzy little 8bit oldschool soundeffect that i made with SFXR (yeah, that little program I linked in the previous post 😛 )
And feel the love as you reach my congratulations, end of level message screen! 😉
Yes… I know… its all very crude and very work in progress 🙂 But hey, every day is a learning experience and im having fun with this stuff… 🙂
First, a minor change to the blog… If you look at the right side, you’ll see a list of Links… The latest version of the game/demo/whatever im working on, will be listed there to make it ALOT EASIER for you to quickly find the latest version of the game 🙂
Hope this change pleases you all 😛
Now, onto the real deal! Tweaks and changes and new additions to the game! 🙂
Yup, finally managed to make the purple bonus items on the level play a sound when you hit them.
I had a problem where I couldnt get them to play a sound, and it turns out that it happened because I wanted the Bonus Items to vanish as soon as you touched them… Meaning, that before the sound could play, the bonus item would already be gone. So I added a little delay when you touch the bonus item, and now you can hear the old school Coin Pickup DING! Sound when you grab it 😉
The attributes for Lerpz and Loopy (yeah, ill change their names eventually 😛 ) were changed so that Lerpz jumps even lower now, so in order for you to get Lerpz to the top of the map, you will now need to use Loopy (either have him act as a Platform for Lerpz to jump off of, or use Loopy to drop a few boxes from the top platform, down to Lerpz’s level so he can stand on them and move up)
Yes, I realise that there STILL is no goal or any reason to play this, but bear with me 🙂 Its a test for me, and im learning new things every day 🙂 I’ve only used this system for about 2 days 🙂
I also managed to add a start-screen (a very very crude one! but a start screen none the less) which will load the main level when you click the Start button in the middle 🙂
The program that I used for making the Bonus Item Pickup sound can be found at this website:
http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
Its great for making old school sound effects similar to what we had on the old NES and Gameboy and Commodore 64 (its possibly identical? I dont really qualify as a guru on the subject of chiptunes and 8bit sound.. so i just said Similar to avoid getting lynched by angry console nerds 😉 )
And to finish off… here is a little screenshot I took after moving both Lerpz and Loopy to the top of the map and stacking Loopy on top of Lerpz… who was on top of a stack of boxes 😛
(I added the text and arrow in photoshop… Sorry to disappoint anyone who might think they would be greeted by fancy text and a big arrow after they made it to the top of the map 😛 )
Sounds very department-store…ish 😉
Basically what it means is that i’ve added little purple rotating thingies (yeah, i figured out how to make something rotate 😛 ) and made the player able to touch these purple thingies to make them disappear… So of course the aim of this will be to make it so that you can touch these to increase your score, and somewhere along the line I intend to make them pop with a little sound and a sparkly effect when they disappear…
http://netherclift.net/eli/unity/
the /Unity is now the newest version, NOT /unity2 🙂
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering. I did not make the graphics for this, they are all from the Unity3d Tutorials… as it is now, I mainly need to focus on learning how to code in Unity3d, and later on I can pay attention to Graphics and Sound Design. 🙂
Very Viking GameDev Blog 