First Devlog

Hi guys, my first devlog about my first game. I already have an idea of what the game will be like, but for now I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and leave you with the game tags.

The game has two important experiences that I decided to divide into two parts. In this case, I’m working on the first part, which is the Mystic Coliseum. Who knows in the future.

The art used in this game is not mine (I won’t push the envelope just yet. I’ve decided that I’m going to use this artwork as visual feedback to develop the game and also so that you can tell me if there’s anything wrong or if there are any bugs you can fill the comments).

Every beginning is similar:

To tell you the truth, the beginning is always a bit confusing. You don’t seem to know what you’re doing and where you’re going with it. But as it takes shape, little by little, we begin to recognize if it’s the path we wanted or not. I think this is due to the fact that an electronic game is a set. Not only the code, not only the visual art, and not only the sound art. Everything has its function and each of these complete each other. You can’t play a game without art or music, after all, they are the means of you can’t play a game made only of art or music. After all, you need code to compile and organize everything. So the first lesson I learned as an indie game dev is: It’s not enough to see only from one point of view. I have to look from all the necessary points of view in a game to know which way I’m going. Well, what I know is that I haven’t walked enough to know if it’s the way or not. hahaha. but I intend to continue.

Sprites:

Well, to be a bit more technical about what was added: I started the prototype and firstly added the sprites I was going to need (obs: it’s called Pixelarium. here it is: LukeThePolice), Going through this part of the sprites I went and created and edited 1 additional sprite for the collider. Then I created 2 objects to be the player and the collider, added their sprites, placed them in the room, ran the game and boom! we have a mannequin and an invisible wall to prevent it from escaping (not that a mannequin will walk. Note: this is not a horror game).

Mannequin Engaging in Alaska:

After defining the sprites, I opened the basic event tabs of the mannequin in Gamemaker: Create, First Step, Step, Final Step, Alarm, Draw and Draw Hud. So I started with Create. I created basic variables to define horizontal and vertical speed. I also put the direction. I also decided that I wanted acceleration. so I added the speed and the maximum speed. Finally I defined the variables for the sprite and the X scale of the sprite a lot for a start. So I went and created a Script to be the Controls. I added basic WASD controls. I took advantage and created another script to be the machine state (note: machine state is what will define what a certain object is doing at that moment. The current state indicates what it is doing. Example: the object cow is in the state grazing). I decided that it was important to make a machine state as quickly as possible to avoid headaches with future updates, especially with my memory. hmm. what memory?, Well, I took a simpler machine state that I could understand. After that, I returned to create and configured the machine state in the mannequin, put the first states: idle and walking, added them to the step, ran the game again and show. Now we have a mannequin that moves so fast that we can’t even notice its movement. But I noticed that the sprite was not only walking very slowly diagonally, it seemed to shake while walking either diagonally or vertically. And then I thought, Damn, but already?, it’s not even 10 minutes old, and I’ve already found my biggest enemy in this journey, apart from the millions of if’s and parentheses, I closed the game tab, tried to imagine what the hell it could be and came to the conclusion that it could be the formula used to calculate the diagonal speed (obs: the diagonal axis does not exist in 2d games, which means that the mannequin has to walk in 2 directions at the same time to “walk diagonally”) but instead of adding the speeds and dividing by two, the game was using Pythagoras to calculate it which made the character have a lower diagonal speed, I left gamemaker and searched the internet for what to do with this line of code, I found things like round, floor, ceil to approximate the speed to an integer, but even after adapting the line of code, I kept shivering, so I decided to let this ghost haunt me for a few more updates, I also found an interesting line of code to transform the value that the controls set when calculating the speed, thus solving the problem of calculating Pythagoras for diagonal speed.

Mannequin learns it’s not a ghost to walk through objects:

After the mannequin learned to walk i decided it was time to create the collision since it wasn’t very interesting to have a ghost mannequin in a dark room. So i went to the final step created a basic collision with the collider object, ran the game and guess what?, the mannequin became the flash and was now shaking its molecules to get through the collider, I left the game and ran to see what it was, I spent hours looking until I finally understood that the problem was in a duplication of the x and y position, “and it was at that moment that cell felt the real terror”, how can something so silly stress you out right?, NO!!, It’s not right at all. It broke my spirit. I felt like a mechanic taking apart a car and putting it back together and seeing that there were screws left. I had to watch an hour of Drake and Josh to feel motivated enough to not be the dumbest despite being dumb. haha. Well, after the psychological consultation I went back and fixed it with a simple backspace and ran the game that’s it. Now the mannequin is no longer the flash. he’s just an ordinary person and alone in a dark space with blue walls.

Friend or foe?:

After my pride as a programmer was buried with an x and y, I finally decided it was time to put a new entity in that empty and dark space where the mannequin was, that’s when I added the sprite of a slime, created an object, configured it just like the mannequin and put it in the room, gave it a run and show of ball, now the mannequin had a companion in the statue game, however the mannequin was smarter and could walk to his companion, so I decided to make him walk too, I configured his AI with some functions to set a random direction for him to venture in and perfect now he walks perfectly anywhere he wants. Unfortunately he thinks he’s a ghost to go through walls. I ran to fix this and remind him that he’s a static mannequin that can walk without moving muscles, ready now he can hit his face on the door without going through it. You thought I would fall into the same hole, didn’t you? Yes, I did. Only here I’m Felipe Neto and I flew out of the hole before seeing the disaster installed Hihi.

Betrayal:

After creating a companion for the mannequin, I thought the room was too quiet, I wanted more excitement, so I decided it was time for them to have life, so I created a variable for the hp of the companion and the mannequin and added a dead state for each one, from there I had to create a way for the two of them to lose their life to really test if they would die after their lives reset and what better way to test this than Cain and Abel, I created an attack pattern for the companion in which he advances towards the player and subtracts his life if he hits him, now the mannequin was no longer safe in that room, his companion turned out to be a hostile assassin who tried to kill you every time you came into his field of vision. And so he died and died several times to this traitor.

Retaliation:

After the tragic events, the mannequin felt wronged by this betrayal coming from his only companion, so I decided to give him a chance to retaliate against the companion and so I added new sprites and I myself decided to let creativity take off, I made 2 types of models, a throwing axe, a staff of light and the projectile for each one, I created their objects and configured the weapons so that the mannequin could pick them up and I configured the projectile so that it subtracted the companion’s life by 1 every time it hit him… haha, soon the mannequin noticed some new things in his space and took the opportunity to pick them up while the attendant wasn’t looking, he soon found out what they did, he then aimed at the attendant and Bang… he hit him with one of the projectiles, the attendant seemed bewildered by what was happening and didn’t seem to know where it was coming from, again Bang…, he hit him again with the projectile and then the attendant seemed to be returning to nothing.

Constantly expanding:

After the events that led to the mannequin’s first victory, I noticed that they were very cramped in their space and decided to increase the size of the room, but this gave me a field of view problem, and so I decided to provide a camera with a suitable field of view to observe the mannequin, I went to the room settings and activated a camera viewfinder to observe the mannequin, so the mannequin realized that its space seemed to have expanded and that it could now go further and stay away from the companion’s field of vision while looking for one of the objects to hit it, finally they fought until the mannequin was the last one standing, SPARTA!!, HAUU!!.

What’s it for?:

After the expansion of the room and many battles, I realized that the mannequin was a little unmotivated to kill the companion and I thought of giving him an incentive, I created a sprite that looks like a coin, this will be the drop of the companion, I created an object, I defined the function for the mannequin to pick it up, and I created a parent object for the companions and I defined the function for him to generate this drop when he died, so the mannequin unmotivated to kill the companion, waited… for something new, waited a little more… and out of sheer boredom, he decided that he would kill the attendant to see if the boredom would pass for a while, the battle seemed frantic, the mannequin moved at speed while firing his gun with mastery, finally he killed the attendant and when he was already turning to go back to lie down and wait in boredom for something new, he caught a glimpse of a yellow glow on the ground where his companion had died and went to check it out of curiosity and saw a strange object, confused he tried to understand what it was for, although he was motivated by something new, he couldn’t figure out a use for that new object.

Newcomers:

After some time reflecting, I decided that what I had already done was more than enough to post as a starter prototype. The escort seemed frustrated with the complete superiority of the mannequin, and so I decided to challenge the mannequin’s existence by putting a few more escorts in the room. Upon realizing it, the mannequin seemed stunned by the new number of newcomers who were occupying the space in the room. Everywhere he looked, there was one, he motivated, decided to test if there was anything different about these newcomers, and the battle began and lasted for several tests. victories here and defeats there. The mannequin and the first companion recovered their sense of competitiveness and continued to fight.

End of Chapter:

Everything at some point comes to an end, after all it is necessary for there to be a new beginning, and it is no different with the chapters, the end of this chapter is necessary for the next one to exist, thank you very much for reading this far, I know that this devlog can be a little strange for some, but it is the way of my soul as a writer to demonstrate my steps to you without you getting bored completely, very grateful to those who took the time to read this little work on a prototype, if you want to follow me for future updates and chapters, then consider following my profile, for those who want to give me tips or feedback on the prototype of the game, please comment, I guarantee that I will take the time to read your opinions and anyone who wants to support me with donations so that I can guarantee more free time for these projects, feel free to do so, I’m really accepting haha, well that’s it my dears I hope you enjoyed it and until the next day when we will see each other.

#SHINING_ETERNAL_STAR