Hey there!
For July I spent time continuing to work on the FPS game. Specifically, I finished the design and implementation of the hub area, created the dialogue system, updated the room door system, and made changes to try and improve the game feel. I know this is the page for Bright Red Skies, but these devlogs have pretty much turned into a monthly update on any projects I've been working on gamedev-related haha.
Anyways, the first thing I did was finish off the hub area. Added in some props to fill in the empty spaces and try to make the area look more believable. The walls were looking really empty so I added some wiring to make the area look more technological and full. Put in some security cameras that periodically rotate and added some temporary characters. Yes, these are BRS character models for anyone that's observant :p
With the temporary characters in the room, I started to work on the dialogue system. The dialogue system doesn't need to be too intricate since the interactions will just be text and options. I felt like the bubble text boxes from BRS wouldn't fit this game so I did some research on other games' dialogue systems and I liked this style the most:
I also added generic dialogue events that can be triggered when you either reach a certain dialogue node or select a certain dialogue option. These events can be anything from updating data that might affect future dialogue or events that do stuff to the environment. For example, in the hub area, the doors won't open until you talk to the control operator.
Speaking of the doors, the door generation system got an update. Previously, when a room spawned, it would have the doors be created wherever there was an entrance. The problem here is that each intersection would have two doors which doesn't make sense. And when walking slowly towards the doors, you would be able to see them open at different times. So instead, the doors are being created separately, so they only get made once.
The last thing I did was do a little bit of work trying to improve the game feel. While testing the game, I felt like having a stamina bar for running felt pretty bad, and looking into it, it seems like a lot of people don't like running stamina for most FPS games. So now you can run as long as you want. The stamina will only be used for special abilities. I also played around with the speed/acceleration numbers to make the movement feel better.
I think that was a pretty decent amount of work done and next month I want to continue working on the shops. There's a weapon, armor, and upgrades shop but the information that needs to be displayed is really different between the three shops. So they need to be developed individually. I also want to add in a new enemy type since there are no melee enemies in the game yet. I want to try and hide the level loading so I want to add an elevator in the game where you'll be stuck until the level is finished loading, to make it feel more seamless.
So for August what I want to do is:
- Weapon shop UI
- New melee enemy type
- Elevator to hide level generation and loading
- Continue to work on game feel
Well, that's all for this devlog! Thanks for giving this a read and I'll see you guys next month for some more updates! :D