DAY 15

Today I worked on blending the dirt tiles to make it so when the path is going outward, it doesnt look blocky and choppy. The whole class I did this and there is not much to write about other than this hurt my brain. I have to make everything line up with each other otherwise it looks bad. This wasn't fun. I got Stephen to work on collisions for the time being, as he finished the save game function. This doesn't seem to work though and there is multiple errors when running the game. Howie is going to figure that out though but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

DAY 14

Today I worked on trying to fix the depth issue which caused certain objects to be "glowing" when it is night time. Howie actually figured it out with a really complicated code: depth = -1000000. Another example of us over complicating everything. I also wanted to continue on the text box, but I'll leave that for another day, because we all noticed that my dirt paths looked too perfect. They need to be dirtier. So I worked on that in photoshop, but didn't quite finish. Below is what I left off with. It looks a little weird but im not sure if it's because I've been staring at it for too long. I tried to make it blend more with the grass so I put extra grass tiles around the pathway. It does look a little cloudy though.

DAY 13

Today I wasn't sure what to do. I want to make a story line of some sort and create some context behind the situation of the character, so I found a video on text boxes so that I can make a screen before the game to explain the story. I also watched Howie implement all of Jake's art for the surroundings of the game, and it looks really cool. I updated my version of the game so that it has all of the work, so now It's better. Also, all of the depths are messed up so I need to fix that.

DAY 12

Today Is a half day and there's only about 30 minutes I have to work but I did customize my blog a little bit more. Also I found an ambient song that I want to put in the game so that every once in a while it comes in, which can be easy, and I'll probably do that after I write this if I have time. It's kind of depressing, which is awesome for the game, and creates a sense of loss in the world. I like it. It reminds me of a game called The Last of Us, which was an amazing game, and that's probably why I like it so much. I also just found another depressing song from "Bensound", though I like the first one better. I want to put these songs during the day, and find a scarier more eerie song for during the night, so it creates realism. The better one is on the top, the almost as good one on the bottom. Oh yeah, they're both royalty free by the way.

DAY 11

Today I worked on fixing the fatal error that was happening when I opened the game due to broken code in the day/night cycle object. This was quite easy actually, I forgot what I had to do, but I fixed it and that's all that really matters. I adjusted the glow so that it's not as intense, and is very hard to see during the night, which is good. One problem when I implemented it into howie's copy, was that the health and ammo bar (GUI) disappears with the darkness, but we decided to keep that since it's kinda realistic that you can't see your ammo during the night and such. I made the day 14 minutes long and the night 10 minutes long, so that 1 day is 24 minutes long. I'm quite happy with the end result. Here is a picture of it, if you can see it.

DAY 10

So today I wanted to add a day and night cycle to again make the game more immersive and awesome. I found a video that seemed to fit the criteria of our game. I wanted to make a glow coming from the player, and the rest of the area almost black. I did all this and had a cycle that went from day to night in about 10 seconds, but didn't go back to day for some reason. It's the end of class and I still don't know why it doesn't work. Anyway, I worked on that and I was almost at the end of the video when my game kept getting a fatal error for some reason. I'm confused and will come back to the headache tomorrow and try and work it out. Stephen made a title screen for the game, and I got Jake and Simran to work on garbage and cars to add miscellaneously throughout the map. Next class I want to try and figure out the problem with the night cycle, and make some collisions maybe.

DAY 9

Today I tampered with the blood spray effect thing, and made it alot smaller so that it looks actually realistic and not blood endlessly spewing out of the player's privates. I made it so it would come out of the player's neck. I want to get Jake to do three stages of the player's state; normal, scratched up, and near-death. This will remind the player to get some health as well. Speaking of health, we now have a health bar thanks to Stephen, which is really cool. I got Jake working on a tree sprite, and want it to be a really depressing tree, just like the rest of the game. He started on that, and I added a layer of fog onto the game to make the game more immersive and realistic. I also want to start working on weather effects, but that isn't quite the priority at the moment. Next class I will make text boxes to simulate the main character's thinking, using this video. I also want to start creating the actual storyline so we can get started on this thing. Below is blood and fog. It's cool.

DAY 8

Today I wanted to create some trees for the game so I went to my old zombie game to get the trees from there, but then realized they were top down and wouldn't look great with the style either. So I took the blood spray particle effect from it and I placed is so when the zombie touches the player, they player spews gallons of blood endlessly. It's very unrealistic and needs to be tampered with, but still is very cool. I also want to create an effect so that when the mouse wheel is scrolled up/down, its zooms the view in/out. I think this would be very cool and would make it so if it is laggy, the player can just zoom in and the lag would be reduced. We also need to work on a shooting sprite. I'd like to add in that I really like Jake's dead player sprite.

DAY 7

I began to continue to work on the stone tile for the indoors of the house, using the colour pallet as a reference. When I was done with that, I placed it as a tile sheet on its own in the game, and covered the room with it. I played the game and the room looked like a hospital and wasn't what I was looking for. Howie fixed my wood texture so that it looks a little better so we will be using that as the indoor texture. I got Jake to work on a "dying screen" so that as the zombies hit you, the view of the screen gets covered in blood and darkness, so that basically "the darkness consumes you". I also wanted to take the role of dexter and made a blood splatter thing that I implemented into the game that doesn't look that great, so I will hand blood over to Jake, and he can be dexter. Next class I want to try and make some trees for the game, and also collisions for those trees, and obstacles such as flipped over cars and stuff like that. Below is a picture of the wood + my crappy blood.

DAY 6

Today I wanted to make a tile for a house room, but couldn't choose between stone or wood. I eventually chose wood and (Spoiler), I chose wrong. I found a real photo of a floor of a house, and used that as a reference when making my pixelated floor. Most of the class was spent doing that. I set the tile in the room and spread it around. It turns out they do not look very good when connecting so I decided to scrap the wood and go with stone as it would be easier to blend. I also made an object that when the player touches it, it then moves to the room and vice versa. At the end of the class I started on a stone tile but didn't get very far. We also got the player and zombie sprites into the game, and I really like how it looks, below is a picture of the marvelous outside room.

DAY 5

Today I began to work on my tile sheet once again. We now also have a working gun that shoots into the zombies and such. Theres not much to say really, the whole class was spent on lining up all of the tiles on the tile sheet to make sure they each fit into one another, and then once I was finished, I added it as a background on game maker, and set it as a tile sheet. I then set it to 32x32 per each tile and went to the room, and placed each tile with eachother and made a dirt opening and a few paths to make sure that they all fit together. And they do, which Im quite happy with, because last year I tried this and they all didn't line up at all. Below is a little map I "drew" with my tiles.

DAY 4

Today I started to work on my tile sheet, but I had to change computers because Ty wanted to use mine as it had all of his stuff on it. So I switched to the computer right next to his and began transferring all of my files. Once I finished doing that I continued to work on the tile sheet. I also got Jake working on the player sprite and Simran working on another gun. I created a dirt tile, as well as a corner pathway moving from grass to dirt, so I can use that to lead the player to objectives and such. Also, a note for future me: I need to go back in to my old top down shooter and try and transfer the tree files to the game. Below is the beginning of my tile sheet by the way.

DAY 3

Today I started working with collisions and such but it wasn't working at all. I then realized after 20 minutes of working with them, that I needed to create variables to do so. After that, Howie showed me his version of the game which he was working on over the weekend and was much more developed than mine, so he gave me that and I began working with that. I made it so that the player rotates with the mouse and can move around doing so. After that I left it with Howie and began working on ground tiles. I used Jake's colour pallet and started making a grass tile. By the end of it, it looked extremely depressing, which is good. Though i'm not quite sure if i'm happy with it at the moment, So I will continue working on it next class, and then make a tile sheet. Below is an extremely low resolution of the grass tile.

DAY 2

Today I was complicated by me not actually being in the class, and had to go to the counsellor's to figure that out. That took up some of my work time but nonetheless I got some work done. Oh yeah, also we have a new addition to the team; Jake. He will be working mostly on sprites and art and such since he is familiar and talented in that area. I also now have a moving player that is smooth and non clunky to control; which is nice. I am working on collisions with walls to start, and once the zombie sprites are made, with them. I am going to try and finish this next class, as I didn't get much work time today.

DAY 1

This is my 3rd time in the Independent Technology 12 class, and I have decided to create once again another large scale game. I am thinking post-apocalypse RPG kind of a game. I have already gathered a group of currently 4 people (Howie, Stephen, Simran, and myself), and have all of the resources I need to get started on this. I am expecting this game to take the whole entire class and I want it to be very good quality. What I did today was downloaded Game Maker Studio off of a USB on to my computer. I have started on the basic mechanics already and have assigned the "team" with objectives. I am hoping this will turn out like the last game I made as it was quite succesful, but I want to focus more on aesthetics and plotline. I also have a placeholder sprite :)