This week I have something new, something special: a video of me showing what I do if I do gamedev. Its 1 full hour of goodies, so, have fun!
What is further in this blog: a lot of work is done on the introshots, the music and the collectibles.
Peek into a work day
And a little note on the video: on the time of the recording I didn’t know that my camera had focusing issues. They are solved now, so next time better.
A work day
I have done vlogs on my gamedev before (in 2018), I am retrying this format. But with a lot of changes, like a better camera setup and more easy video editing workflow (no post editing, all live). And I am open for suggestions and improvements on the format.
In summary, this is what I am talking about in the video:
- How do I find work to do.
- Start working on a new movie sequence.
- Using an editor script to speed up work.
- My parallax movie scene setup.
- Background info on how I approach animations.
- Prepare assets for import.
- Create the first scene in the movie sequence.
- Whats next for this movie sequence.
- Git commit.
- Integrate new movie sequence: update map and unlock sequence.
- Pull requests and build strategy.
- My branching strategy in my build pipeline.
I am going to do more vlogs about specifics during game development, with my work on Find the Gnome 2 as an example.
The next vlog will be between now and the next blog. Maybe I release it at the same time as my blog (each 4 weeks), or maybe I am creating these vlogs when I am into it. I just don’t know yet.
Introshots
In the previous video I mentioned, I add a new movie sequence, or ‘introshot’ as I like to call them. The past 4 weeks I did a lot more work on these ‘introshots’.
In the previous blog I mentioned my renewed parallax engine. So with the new engine, working on the introshots was really fun.
I did have to redo some of my old work though. Especially the introduction movie that plays when you start the game had to be fully redone. I also took the opportunity to make it align to the music clip.
Music
This brings me to the music: Tobias is almost finished with his work on Find the Gnome 2.
In the past 4 weeks he has created the final tracks for the City theme levels. And helped with me understanding the music, and making sure the introshots are aligned with the music.
He also helped out with an improved loading screen music transitioning model. Still need to rework some things of it though, but I really like this concept of the music corresponding to what is in view. And he helped out with that a lot.
Level flow
While working on the music transitioning, I came to the realization that the level flow had some bugs. But also, it just didn’t convey the message I wanted to convey as good as it could be.
Before I did rework on this, the levels played with the introshots in between. Until you completed the game. However, if you wanted to exit the game you got back to the map. (And probably did see the map for the first time).
The map is the ‘captain cabin’ and Tobias has put a lot of work in creating these adventures-vibe tracks. On top of that, the ‘captain cabin’ room has a lot of stuff in it that is there for tracking progress and replay-ability.
Tobias his idea was to give the players a break on the end of each theme, return to the captain cabin, and let them continue to the next theme from there on. I really liked this idea because it solves a few things for me, and better presents his music.
So that is what I did change to the flow. You now play a theme, return to the map, see your progress while listening to a matching theme music, and then continue with the story (or do some replay on levels).
Collectibles
That brings me to the last thing I worked on: collectibles.
Each level contains 2 items that the gnomes lost. You can collect these. All these items will be on display in the map / ‘captain cabin’. And for certain items, completing the collection will reward you with an introshot displaying the gnomes in their daily work. So you get more of an insight into the daily life of these gnomes you helped out.
So, that’s it for today. Have a nice day, and see you next time around!
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