Journal Entry 7

Date: 12.05.2023

Activity: 

- Started working on the actual game at around 14:45.

- Programmed the weapon modes, pick ups, weapon UI, weapon mode selection controls, etc.

- Finished the work and compiled the build at around 19:20

- Uploaded the file and wrote down the main page text at 19:40

- Writing the journal entry now, at around 19:45.

Notes:

Ok. I literally finished making the game today. I spent like 5 hours. It's been so long that I don't even remember the challenges that I'm supposed to be writing in this journal entry.

I first programmed the weapon modes. These are pistol, machinegun and shotgun. Unity's original source code was based on having a single weapon with its cooldowns, timers, etc. I changed the code so that it can handle multiple weapons with multiple cooldowns. This important, because I didn't want the player to switch back and forth between the machinegun and shotgun and abuse the common firing cooldown times to fire quickly with the shotgun. It worked.

Then I worked on the UI. Unity really likes to instantiate the UI elements via code, so I tried to do that at first. I always forget how UI things work, so I fumbled around a lot for about an hour probably. After that, I pretty much gave up and put the UI element on the screen directly, rather than instantiating it via code like Unity does. In the end, it worked really well, which makes me wish I had done that earlier.

I've been working non-stop for 5 hours so I really didn't want to be bothered to make a detailed journal entry. However, just for you, I rushed through the game and grabbed the shotgun for you. In the above, you can see "the new UI". It shows you what weapons you've got, and the currently selected weapon. You can see the shotgun in action. It's not really a shotgun, since Ellen's weapon is still the same. That's why I call it "weapon modes". The currently selected weapon mode is the shotgun, and you can see it firing 15 bullets in a cone, with differing speeds. It also plays the same firing sound, but 3 times at once, so it sounds pretty meaty.

After that, I made the pick ups. They're just blue boxes with text on them. What else was I going to do? Draw weapons myself? Then you would have asked me to animate Ellen to hold the very same weapon. I could have tried animating a 3D rig (if I had one), but this is sprite based animation, and I don't have the tools to animate it, nor the experience. But anyway, the above is a screenshot of one of the pick ups, as well as a partially complete "Tower of Doors".

Then, I zoomed out the camera a bit by changing the vertical FOV (earlier it was 46, now it's 60). I also increased the light radius to accommodate for the zoomed out camera.

Also, you can see the flat background colour that I'm using, which I talked about in one of the previous journal entries. I like that it doesn't bother my eyes, and it's relatively consistent with the average brown colour of the tiles.

After I built the game, I tested it a bit, then uploaded it here. I also wrote the contents of the main page of the game.

I'm really tired and I didn't want to write anything here, but I ended up writing a lot, so there you go.

Anyway. I can't remember what else I did, but the game is pretty much ready to be tested for the group playtest session thing.

Oh and yes, obligatory mention that I still haven't received a reply from the professor, so I don't know if he considers this "weapon mode" a "non-trivial custom code". It wasn't just that anyway, I've also had to write the UI and pick ups and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting.

All that's left to do is to record a short video, upload it to the main page, and call it done. I'D BETTER NOT FORGET THAT...

As is tradition, I will share my TODO list with you:

TODO:

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

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

Bye.

Invested Hours:

- 5 hours working on the game, and completing it.

- 10 - 15 minutes on the journal.

Outcome: 

1) Build (Project C, v1)

2) Obsolete journal entry #7.