Day 14: Alot of Work

Not just alot to do, but alot was finished today. In class, I was able to incorporate the player being able to use the machete. First, I tried a click-to-attack type method, but it didn't work/look all that great, so with the idea from Jake, made it so that the player has to move the mouse for it to register as the machete being swung. Now the player can kill zombies in 2 to 3 hits using melee combat. After school, I also spent alot of time working on making a set fire rate and magazine for the pistol in the game. It took a few hours to sort out some issues, but it finally works perfectly. Now the player will have to wait a split second between shots, and wait a few seconds between every 6 rounds. It's alot nicer than just constant shooting. Now I have to work out these same details with a few extra guns like the sniper rifle, shotgun and AK-47. At least now  I have code I can take from the pistol. That way I (hopefully) won't run in to too many problems. I'll just have to mess with a few variables/alarms.

Day 13: Decoration and Visuals

Today  I did a little bit of work on the game's title screen, working somewhat on the logo. Before I could finish it completely, I got the sprites that Jake has been making, and put them into the world. We had a problem where the player was walking over all of the sprites, but with the help of Ty and some centering of the sprites, our character is now able to flow through everything nicely. I just added the gun and ammo sprites at the end of the day, so those can be added tomorrow. Justin is planning on a story, and is currently doing some indoor artwork. Stephen is making the zombies respawn, and Jake is making some more artwork as always.

Day 12: Design

I worked on the main title screen for the game, and it looks pretty cool. All I have left to do on it right now is fading a little bit of the blood and maybe changing a little bit of the text up, but nothing too major. Some plans are set ahead for the game, but everything is thought of mostly on the spot and then put into the game. There is alot of work being done, and the game is turning out nicely.

Day 11: Opening Screen

Today I worked on the title screen for the game, the new name being "Drop Dead." (thanks to Ty for the idea.) I stared some artwork for the title, and worked on a little bit of code, but nothing too major. Some more features that Justin and Jake have made are being implemented into the game now,and everything is coming along nicely. Alot of progress is being made so far for the amount of time taken. The day/night cycle has been put in to the game, and has a 14 minute day, and 10 minute night time. The night is very dark, with a light surrounding the player (as if they have a lantern). The night is going to be much harder to survive, maybe some settings can be tweaked to make it more of a challenge.

Day 10: Start

Thanks to Stephen, the Start menu is now finished. It only has a working Start and Quit button as of right now, but the other buttons will work later. If not, they can always be removed. Justin is now working on a day and night cycle, which will be implemented into the game relatively soon. Night time is when the zombies will spawn mostly, unless the player reaches certain places. The majority of the work I did was trial and error type things. I tried implementing health bars for the zombies, but they didn't look very good so I got rid of them. I worked a little bit with the health system and shooting as well, but nothing major. I was mostly busy otherwise incorporating some of the other's work into the game.

Day 9: Just a Flesh Wound

Health has been implemented into the game, thanks to the help of Stephen. I also took the liberty tonight to make it so that the health being taken away from the player and zombies is more random. Every time the player is hit by a zombie, anywhere from 5 to 10 hp is taken off. This may be readjusted later. When a bullet hits a zombie, anywhere from 25 to 50 hp is taken away, allowing for 3 to 4 shot kills, and even extremely rarely, a 2-shot-kill. The next thing I plan on doing is making health bars for each individual zombie, and counters above their heads that show how much hp was taken away from each bullet. Giving a *critical hit* notification when the player strikes a high amount of damage. Justin made some awesome blood effects that are finally in the game, and a sweet looking fog overlay that also works in the pause screen. Jake is working on some more visual stuff, like trees, zombies, cars and more, and Simran is doing the bullet sprites for the guns and some other visual items in the game. Stephen may be working on an inventory system next, but we aren't too sure what is happening as of the moment. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Day 8: Movement is gr8

I fixed the movement of the player today, so no he faces the direction that he is moving in, works with both running and standing sprites, and has a separate sprite for the arm that the gun is being held in. Also, that arm swivels around a point on the body and also changes direction and sprites based on the directional conditions of the player. Now all I need to do is readjust the shooting mechanic so that the bullets actually get fired from the gun, rather than from the player's torso. The health bar has been made by Stephen and is now working, and I am hoping to incorporate that into the game fairly soon. Jake is making some amazing corpses and zombies for the game, and Simran is making some sweet looking bullet sprites for the individual ammo types of each gun. Justin is working on trees and particle effects at the moment as well. Tomorrow, who knows what I'll be working on once I fix the bullets.

Day 7: Fixed Mistakes

The view in the starting room has been fixed, so now the game can be played again. The new zombie sprite is now in the game, and the new player sprite as well. I was also able to add the running animation for whenever the player is moving. Now all I need to do is add some more directional control in regards to the ways the player is facing, and get the new sprites in the game and working properly for the shooting character. The next thing I am going to work on will be some interior design in the starting house. There currently is only a floor texture, and a black box you go through to enter the outside world.

Day 6: "Room" for Improvement

Today's work consisted of making views for the game, making the room wider, adding a new room and fixing the ammo variable showing on screen. I was able to make the ammo counter show at the bottom right side of the screen, with a perfect count of the current ammo the character has. Justin was able to make a second room through which the player could go in and out of from the main room. I tried to adjust the views in the game once it was created, but I ended up leaving the first room (the new house) as a black screen. The game was shrunk down and everything looked alot smaller, with some graphical glitches too, so I tried to fix it by readjusting the view in the room... not a good idea. The new zombie sprites are being introduced, as well as the player sprite. There is still alot of work to do with that however. Stephen is still working on the health system, and Simran is continuing his work with some cool looking gun and ammo icons for later use in the game.

Day 5: Pause Finished

The pausing feature finally works, thanks to Stephen. He found a much shorter and simpler code to use int place of the original one. Now the zombies and everything stop as they should.

Today I finished making the character able to shoot, implementing a limited fire rate, an ammo count, and ammo boxes that can be picked up in order to gain more ammunition. Now I plan to add some text on screen that show how much ammo the player has left. I have the code, just a few problems with it at the moment.

Stephen is now working on a health system for the main character and zombies, I requested Simran to make some ammo sprites for the ammo pick-ups that will be added for each weapon, and I helped to pick a main character sprite made by Jake. Justin is working on making a map, placing all of the ground tiles. Lots of work to be done still, but the game is coming along very nicely so far. Alot of progress has been made in just these few days.

Day 4: Pause

Today was a bit of an interesting day, in terms of progress being made. I began by moving to my computer of choice at the front of the class which meant I had to redownload Game Maker, Dropbox and Skype, and get all of my files back through Dropbox. Once that was all done, I worked with Stephen on integrating the pause feature when you hit escape, and ran into some trouble along the way. The zombies move along a path with it's own set direction and speed, towards the player at all times. By hitting pause, everything in the game stops, except for the zombies. Their image_angles don't change, but they keep moving along the path. This is hopefully going to be an easy fix. As a group, we all decided on a main character sprite, as created by Jake. Justin came up with some nice floor tiles, and is going to be working on buildings in the near future. There are alot of plans for the game, such as adding an inventory "hotbar," in which all of the player's weapons will be shown. By pressing the corresponding key, the player will switch to that weapon. The player will also be able to enter and loot buildings, and much more.

Day 3: Fire Away

The goal of today was to be able to make the character pick up the gun, and be able to shoot with it. I managed to get the player to pick up the gun, but I am having some trouble getting it to shoot with some of the variables. I was able to make it rapid fire by holding the shooting button, but now that I have introduced some wait times between shots, I am finding a bit of trouble.

In collaboration with the others, we have established an art style for the character, and sorted out what parts of the game each person is working on. A pause button is now working through the help of stephen, Jake and Simran are working on art, and Justin and I are working on some more technical things, with aesthetic things here and there.

Day 2: New Beginnings

Now that everything is sorted out (along with the addition of a new member), progress is beginning to take lace. A colour palette is being made for the character and background sprites, some weapon/object sprites are being made, and movement is already happening in game. The character is able to move smoothly so far with the code shown in the screencapture above. I also have started to make the zombies in the game, and I am currently working on making them track towards the player if they are within a certain distance. I may be able to find some code in screenshots of my old game that I can use/transfer into the new game in order to make the enemies track towards the player.

Day 1: Setup

   IT 12 is among us now, and my next project is set; I am making a game. However, this time I will be sure to back up all of my saved files into dropbox. This time I (along with the assistance of three others) will be making an RPG like game, in the style of a top-down shooter. Based in a post-apocalyptic time, the main character will have to fight the resulting zombies to ensure his survival.

What is it called? For now, it is

   Project Z

 The main point of today's work was to connect all of our dropbox accounts to one central linked folder. That way, everybody has access to all of the files being used in the game. Two people as of now will be working on sprites, and one person will be working on movement. Another, currently in what  I would call, "training" is taking some time to learn the ropes of the program and how everything works.

   For now, everything is in very early stages. Our game doesn't even exist as of this moment.


This is going to be an awesome game.