Hey folks, RefresherTowel here with my (much more verbose) side of the monthly devlog. This month we tackled some procedural arena generation, the game over screen and, correspondingly, unlockables! And finally added in some SFX. If that sounds like your kinda jam, then read on...
The Procedure of Generating
Procedural generation, or the dark art of building up a set of rules a computer can follow to generate a random map, has always been a deep love of mine. I don't think I've worked on a game that doesn't involve proc-gen in at least some kinda way, so getting started on the arena generation felt a bit like coming home to a warm fire in the middle of winter.
Right now, three arenas are generated per run, which hold some data about how they should look (lighting, border sprites, etc), alongside a few levels for each arena. The levels have a few simple rules (generate X number of trap cards, for instance), and taking these rules and applying some constraints to them (don't generate 2 shop cards next to each, for instance), we've got a fairly nice little level gen working. There's still a few minor kinks to work out, but nothing too serious. Here's a little glimpse at one of the levels from the first arena (remember, this isn't the final product and a lot can change between here and release).
Ya Died, Mate!
This month, we also managed to get around to the game over screen. Up until this point, all that would happen when you die is loss of control and the camera very slowly zooming in for eternity. It felt like the right time to change that, so we've added in the game over screen, which shows you everything that earned you XP over the run and levels you up. As you level, you'll unlock access to a variety of things. Right now, the backend for unlockables is in the game, but we haven't actually added anything to unlock yet, so leveling up gives you a kind of Schrodingers unlockable (it's not there, but it kinda is...). We still have a bit of work to do on it, but let's have a quick squiz at how it stands right now (again, these things are liable to change before release).
Effecting A Change in Sound
Tackling SFX has always been one of those areas of game dev that I find kinda painful to deal with. Sorting through hundreds of audio files, finding appropriate ones for your game (and then subsequently getting confused about which ones you decided were appropriate), trying to decide between two sounds that are quite different but still hit the same kinda vibe...There's a lot to it that breaks me out in a cold sweat.
Luckily, we're dealing with animals here, so at least I get the consolation prize of listening to a bunch of sweet critters singing the songs of their people. In any case, this month was the month we allotted to starting to get SFX running in the game and that means I have been mired in audio files, headphones glued to ears, for quite some time now. But the reward has been the game coming alive in a way it wasn't before. There's nothing quite like the difference that interactive audio makes when dealing with a game in development. After adding in SFX, it suddenly becomes a "real" game, so despite the pain, the reward is always worth it.
There's obviously a lot of little things we did over the month, from adding new cards, to enemy drops and more, but if I wrote about everything this devlog would be even longer than it already is! So instead, I'll just say my goodbyes until next time...