DAY 34

Today I was only here for about half the class but I tried to get as much work done as possible. I attempted to try a different method to drawing a black foreground for the cutscene which ultimately still. didn't. work. Why is this so hard I may need help. I tried having it so that if an alarm goes off, the draw event in the room glow object draws a black background on to the foreground. I am not sure why this still didn't work, I may have to change what I'm doing.

DAY 33

Today I wanted to make it so the player and his "significant other", start the game by sleeping in their sleeping bags in the house. Then it fades to black for a few seconds, goes back to the room, the player still in his sleeping bag while the "significant other" is gone from theirs. The player's sprite is then changed to their normal one, and they get up and run to the door, stepping on a sensor then triggers a text box that says "Where'd they go?". Then the room is changed to the outside and a bandit is standing there. Then the widescreen goes away, the cutscene ends, and the bandit runs towards the player and the game begins. I started with trying to get the black fade in the foreground of the room, and created another timeline for that. Though there is only one event for timelines: the step event. This means that I can't draw anything, and have to set an alarm or something to draw it for the timeline, which I tried and still didn't work. The problem is that we have waaaay to many alarms in the player object. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to go about this. Also, I implemented Jake's "Kitchen Kit" with hardcore fridges and ovens. Next class I will continue working on the cutscene and hopefully figure out an alternate way to draw a black background, the rest is quite easy.

DAY 32

I couldn't figure out why the cutscene just wasn't playing while the player was inside the house. I had a variable for cutscene, and a line of code in the player, so that if the player is inside the room, the cutscene = true, and if cutscene = true, play the cutscene pretty much. Though this wasn't working, and the player was just standing still in the room. I got it to work though and I'm quite happy with it. It's just a test though to see if it would work. Whenever the player is in the room, he walks to the left, and down a bit, and then stops, then the widescreen goes away and you can move the player freely. This is good because before I couldn't figure out how to lock controls while the cutscene is playing. For the actual cutscene, Ill have a scene of the player and their significant other both sleeping in their sleeping bags, then it goes to black, and goes back to the same room, though the significant other is now gone. The player gets up, and runs into a sensor which shows a text box displaying something like this: "What the heck happened oh no she/he is gone ahhh". Tomorrow I will work on that.

DAY 31

Today I fixed the light problem in about 5 seconds and then began to work on the cutscene the rest of the class. I reapplied the cutscene to the player, and made a variable for cutscene, so when cutscene = true, then the cutscene may begin, and all of the stuff for it may also begin. The player animation works with it too. I also made a widescreen view for when the cutscene is playing, basically it is applied on to the player object when cutscene = true. Right now it's not necessarily working for some reason. It should only make cutscene = true when the player is in the house. I may have to play around in the player draw event for this to work, but right now I'm quite happy with my progress today. I also want to make it so that there is a constant sort of dusty foreground when in the house to create atmosphere; which is my goal for the game.

DAY 30

Today I fixed the revolver by replacing it with Howie's version which for some reason wasn't already imported. I worked on the glow inside for pretty much the whole class, though it is a shorter day like the past week has been. I had to play with it a bunch; at first it was projecting a black image on to the player, then I fixed that within the code, and then it looked weird because the dark forgeround image is layered on top of the glow, which makes it look really awkward. Ty said it looked fine but no, I don't like it. Ill fix that tomorrow and work on the cutscene. Also, I got Jake to work on a fridge which has too many sticky notes, it looks good though, its progress, good job Jake, proud of you. [UPDATE] Jake made it look good.

DAY 29

Today I fixed some stuff and broke some more stuff to say the least. I got the machete, and all the guns to work besides the revolver, which I have no idea why it doesn't. That was the only gun I didn't import from Howie's files because I had it on my game, so I might have to import his revolver to my game, which will hopefully fix it. I also tried to project a slight glow on the player when in the room but for some odd reason it wasn't working. It could be a problem from adding in Howie's player object, and then me changing the name of my player, which all the variables and such were connected to. This messed up alot of things that I had to fix. Next class I will try and make the glow work, and work on the cut scene maybe.

DAY 28

Today I finished combining all of our files together, which was very tedious. I dragged all of the files into the folders at first, which completely corrupted everything and it was a huge mess. Then I redid it and dragged each one of Howie's sprites into my game, paired them each individually with their images, which was found in the backup folder, and then imported all of Howie's objects, and paired them with the sprites. It's kind of a mess at the moment but at the least; it works. This was quite frustrating at first but I managed to pull through. Today is a short class so I couldn't do much of anything else. Tomorrow I will try and clean up the mess I made today, and then continue on my actual work such as making that slight glow around the player while inside the house.

DAY 27

Today I worked on making the path for the bandit actually work. I tried un applying the zombie as a parent to the bandit, but that didn't work. I forget what I actually did to make it work but I did it, and made it so its doing a constant loop, which looks really odd at the moment and needs refining. I then made it so the inside of the house is layered with black to create the illusion of no power. After that, I decided to combine Howie and I's game files, since his are corrupted immensely for some reason. This took a while and still isn't fully finished. There is quite a bit of errors but next class I will try and fix them. This reminds me to combine our files more frequently. After I do that, the game file will be used as the master one for everyone to have. Also, I want to ultimately create a more immersive atmosphere within the game to make it better. Next class I want to make a very slight glow around the player to make it look better inside the house.

DAY 26

Today I messed around alot with the path of the bandit. It's the end of the class and it's still not working; I'm really confused as to why it's not. Ty I need your help. Other than that we decided to just have the inside of houses as separate rooms at least for now, because I think Howie figured out a way to make the other rooms run when the player is outside of them. I also played with the room_dark object, so that whenever the player is inside a house, it is quite dark. I'm not actually sure if I got it to work as I haven't really tested it out. I've just been trying to figure out why the path doesn't work. I did watch another video which consists of a 9 year old talking very intelligently. Next class I think I'll work on the room dark thing if it doesn't work. I also got Jake's new bandit sprite.

DAY 25

Today I worked on creating the darkness inside the room which still isn't quite working, for some odd reason. I am trying to make the room look more like a house which isn't quite working. I suggested an idea that the whole entire game could be one room. When the player goes inside a house, everything outside of it blacks out. This would be kind of hard due to having to create the inside of the house as an object, but it is now an option. I started making an arm for the bandit so he can shoot at the player, using the sprite of the players's arm. This is a little complicated so I think were just going to stick to the bandit only using melee weapons. I then starting making a path for the bandit to follow until it sees the player, and then it will track it. Below is how far I made it to:

I have no idea why he just goes off into the woods for no reason, I made the path as is below. I will try and mess with it tomorrow and see if it works.

DAY 24

Due to the lack of Jake and Connor's presence, I called them to see where they were. Jake "getting ready" for Grad Cruise, and Connor was washing his car. Jake said he could do work from his house so I assigned him with house design. Howie then tried to fix my shadow code because it was only projecting the player's shadow when stationary, though he spent 20 minutes on my computer only creating a bigger problem. I then deleted the thing Howie spent 20 minutes I'll never get back, and tried something else. Solution: shadows are overrated on people. I'm just going to take away shadows on people and keep them on still objects. I find this actually makes people harder to see which can be good. Also, I made it so the blood coming from the player doesn't show through the pause screen, which was a quick fix. Though the blood is still showing behind the player, which I need to fix. Next class I will work on that as well as maybe working on the cut scene and room design.

DAY 23

Today I worked on a little bit of outdoor room design. I started with that and then did small things such as adding shadows to a few things, and made the view in the house room to be zoomed in alot. I also worked on making it so that when the player is in the house, there is a slight glow around him, and it is very dark, creating the illusion that power does not exist. I also made another grass tile that is basically 4 duplicated grass tiles to allow the room designer (me) to easily place a large amount of tiles.

DAY 22

Today I worked on the cut scene for when the player walks outside to see the "bandit". I realized that I needed an actual bandit sprite to be made first before I can make this cut scene. I also realized that the player starts in the house, and the inside sprites and miscellaneous items in the house have to be made before I make the cut scene, so the player can track around the objects. I put this off until later and worked on the outside room design for the mean time while Jake makes the sprites. I didn't get far into this but I am picturing how the world will look beyond the house. I have some ideas. Next class I will expand upon them. Also, I added couches.

DAY 21

Today Jake and I tweaked the story a bit in the beginning of class a little bit. We wanted to create a cut scene, if not multiple cut scenes. I searched up a tutorial and found one quite helpful, though I didn't get far through due to having an error. I realized I needed a movement variable to implement in to the "timeline". I also got Connor (The guy working on the game but not in this class) to make garbage to scatter around the outside of the house, and got Jake to make furniture for inside of the house, as that's where the beginning of the game starts. I also worked on outdoor design a little bit nearing the end of the class. Below is what the beginning of the masterpiece looks like.

DAY 20

Today I continued on room design for the exterior of the game, but most of the class Jake and I came up with the beginning of a story. Were gonna make it so the player and their "other" are in a house, around 1 year after the apocalypse, when cannibals raid your house when you're sleeping. The player is immune to zombies, and has a bite, so the cannibals disregard you, and take your "other". You awaken to hear screeching of tires or something, find that your "other" isn't in their bed sleeping. You run outside and see one of the cannibals, and then that is the tutorial on how to shoot. We will continue on this tomorrow as well as exterior design. Also, we now have an objective board.

DAY 19

Today I fixed up the shadow code so it works a little better and looks alright. The only problem is when it goes dark, the shadow is still there, but it actually doesn't look too bad, so I'll leave it for now. I took on the role of Martha Stewart: Outdoor Edition, and starting making the design of the outdoors.  I basically made a crap load of trees and made a clearing around where the player spawns. It looks alright and isn't anything at the moment compared to what I'm aiming for. I want it to be a massive room. Also, we want to make an objective board; hopefully on the white board behind Howie, or on my blog or something, I'll do that next class, as well as continuing the room design.

DAY 18

Today I decided to postpone the fixing up of the note at the moment as it isn't as important. I want to continue on aesthetics a little bit more and then work with that later. So Jake showed me a tutorial game which I then used as a reference for creating a shadow for our objects in our game. This was actually quite easy and looks pretty good. I also want to have a light emitting from the bullet but we had a discussion and they want to make the game a top down version and redo everything pretty much. I put in the suggestion of just making 4 basic player sprites, and the players arm rotates still having that top down effect, but not being top down. I think top down shooters take away from the atmosphere.

DAY 17

Today we were told to set the "Art crew" up with Game Maker Studio so that they were more involved within the game. We copied Howie's game folder to Simran and Jake's Dropbox folder. I showed Jake how to create sprites and objects and such so he can do it all on his own. I continued working on the text thingy. I made it so the text displays when the player is on it, and disappears when the player moves away. I wanted to make it so the text displays on a "note" that simultaneously pauses the game so that the player can read it. I made a placeholder sprite for the note, and made it so that when the text is drawn, the sprite is also. The only problems now are lining up the text and the note, creating the depth with the text and note, and pausing the game. All of this I will do next class.

DAY 16

Today I finished up the blending of the path tiles to make it all connect and it looks fairly decent. I continued on working with the text box with the video I watched half of a few days ago. This video ended up not working very well for the style of our game so I found a different one that was better. It is very simple. So far all it does is when the player touches the "note" object (You'll see why it's called note when the story is developed fully), It draws a string with the font of the menu above it a little bit. It's very un-developed at the moment but tomorrow I will continue on working with it to make it look good. I want it to be displayed on a note sprite that I got Jake to start on this class.