Journal Entry 5

Date: 10.05.2023 - 11.05.2023 (I'm writing this at midnight)

Activity: 

- Started working on the actual game. I created a new level, and fixed the health bug. I don't know when I started (it was around 17:00), but it took about 20 minutes.

- Started working on the tile set at 19:50. Pretty much finished the main "skeleton" of the tile set, as well as some other props.

- Took a break at 21:10.

- Continued at 21:25.

- Finished working on the level for today at 23:00.

- Writing the journal at around 00:00.

Notes:

I started by creating the scene so I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. I don't know when I started, but I spent about 20 minutes tinkering with the background colour, fixing that stupid HP bug that made me lose 5 points (which only took dragging and dropping the UI object into the appropriate place in the inspector).

Still not sure about the background. I really want something simple, like a flat coloured background. Because aesthetics is not the point of my level. It's just a dumb platformer game. However, I might have to copy and paste some background stuff from the other pre-made levels, and sprinkle them in a way that it looks somewhat decent, but maybe not.

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After a few hours, I started working on the main tile set of the level. I pretty much drew the main "skeleton" of the tile set in about 3 hours. Compare that with the 9 hours spent on the pointless design document...

Anyway, not much to write here. I made the level. I will share two pictures regarding what has changed in the actual level (compared to the design document).

The above is the first change. While drawing the tile set, I pretty much forgot to add the vertical part which was supposed to be traversed via the lift. This is probably because I was too much focused on aligning the tile set correctly with the other parts of the level. In any case, it doesn't detract anything from the overall experience, but I'm writing it here to show that I'm putting an effort to writing these journals, since that's pretty much all that matters about this course.

Next, we have the second change. As the pictures point out, I had to remove these spikes in the actual game, because they were impossible to get through without getting damaged. I could have raised the ceiling to make it work, but I do like the "measurements" of the current level. I mean, each corridor/tube is 3 cubes wide/high, which looks kind of neat. Anyway, not that it matters all that much.

Oh, and I still haven't received a reply from the professor about my last email. I'm pretty much hoping that this "switching gun mode" idea is acceptable at this point, since I've got like 6 days left until the deadline.

As a final thing, I will share a quick TODO list which I wrote:

TODO

- Decide between using flat colour background or scenery (probably the former).

- Moving platform speed adjustments (especially in the spitter area).

- Enemy placements (don't forget about the starting area).

- Programming weapon modes (the "non-trivial custom code").

- Acid pools.

- Add checkpoints.

- "Tower of Doors".

- Final room tile set and its inhabitants.

- Teleport to main menu (on reaching the goal).

- Trailer video (I really hope I do not forget about this).

- Upload the trailer video (don't wanna forget about this either).

That's it for now. Bye.

Invested Hours:

- 3 hours, 15 minutes working on the document game.

- 30 minutes meticulously preparing pictures on MS Paint for the journal.

- 10-15 minutes on the journal.

Outcome: 

1) WIP game level.

2) Obsolete journal entry #5.

EDIT: I worked on the GAME, not the document...