Good evening everyone,

this time there is just a small update to the game.

Luna worked on improving the collisions, however there are only small changes visible yet.
You can check the new collisions for yourself on the top forest map.
(I changed the button to walk again from 'w' to 'e' since i realized that some people might use wasd to move)
After the next week Luna will continue with her work and improve the collisions even further.

As for me: I have started planning out our individual interaction system.
I promised you some more details and here is my rough plan for it:

I will use a three dimensional array, i will save the x coordinate, y coordinate and a number corresponding to the object that is at that place in it. With this i can check which object the player is facing based on the coordinates and show the according menu.

In the background of this system there will be many classes for the different types of objects, like rocks, trees, water or flowers.( classes are kinda like instructions on how to build an object. )

So once the class of lets say a rock has been opened there is a method in it which will change the entries of a menu.
A method is kind of an action, like walking or talking. In this case it will change the entries of a text based menu.

From then on the player can decide what to do and a different class will perform the chosen action, like picking up an object.

I do believe that this will take some time to complete, so stay up to date and dont miss the time that you can see some changes again. :)

As always you can play the updated version here.

I wish all of you merry christmas and some relaxing days.
Thanks for your continuous support.

Best wishes

Feliza

Good evening,


this week Luna worked on testing new forms of colliders. Meaning she worked on the player not stopping too far from trees and other objects. Due to the fact that she is still in the middle of improving our maps there is no update for that this week.

I wanted to finish the interaction system this week. After i succesfully figured out the location of the object in front of the player, by taking the players position and direction into account i started looking for a way to figure out which object is at a given location in unity.
The result is that there is none.


There are two ways to create an interaction system in unity. The first would be to search in a list of all objects for the object you want. This is however not a good idea due to the performance suffering from it. The other method is to use colliders and once the player collides with an object a certain code is started and a program runs.

Since i want the player to be able to interact with every tile those solutions arent really suitable for this project.

I got some advice from a friend and decided to create my own system for this.
It will probably take several weeks, but the game will be faster and i can form the system to match my needs 100%.

The idea is to use a 2 dimensional array(imagine it like a table or grid) and store information about each location in my 2d world there. Once i finish planning the system i will tell you a bit more about it.

I have something else that i want to tell you today. In the week from the 21. december to the 27. december there will be no game or blog update due to the many christmas related events in this time.

Thanks for your continuous support.

Best wishes

Feliza

Good evening,


this week Luna fixed the graphics that didnt match at the edges of the maps.
In addition to that she created a new map for you to explore.

During the time that she spent working on improving the maps i finished the first step for the interaction system.
The first step was to make it possible to get the location of the player at any time.

Once i know the players location i have to check the direction the player is facing in and can then determine what object is in front of the player. This however will be implemented next week.

In order for it to be more fun to explore the map i have added a function to increase the player speed.
By pressing 'r' you start running and by pressing 'w' you continue walking.
The animation speed does not change corresponding to the movement speed though.

Please check out the new features and tell me your opinion in a comment.

You can play the updated version here.

Thanks for your continuous support.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hello everyone,

this week Luna worked on a major makeover for her previous maps.
The layers on which the objects were placed have been reorganized as well as the objects themselves.

During that time i implemented collisions into the game. In addition to that i patched the maps from Luna together, creating a bigger area on which you can walk.

Since the colliders on trees and big stones have the form of a box the feeling might still be a bit rough.
The maps that i put together dont match each other perfectly yet, so Luna will be adjusting these things next week.

For those who read this and want to make a game using Tiled and Unity i got a few tipps regarding the map creation:

- First decide on a rough world map sketch so the big picture is correct
- When using Tiled decide on one path thats the same on every PC for your assets
- Double check after your map is complete if everything is correct
- Put the maps next to each other to check if they match
- Create an empty layer for the player and make sure it has the same number for each map

These are some things Luna and I figured out bit by bit while improving the maps each week.
Some of these things have yet to be changed on our own maps, however i am confident, that you will like the changes next week.

I look forward to uploading a new version next week and hope that you will be able to interact with objects or NPCs in the new version.

You can play the updated version here.

Best wishes

Feliza

Good evening everyone,

this week my focus was on improving the game version rather than bringing out new content.

Some people told me a few things that didnt feel right and i worked on correcting them.

So i fixed the following issues:

- walking speed diagonally is now the same as walking speed into any other direction
- camera doesnt follow behind but stays with the player all the time
- animation speed has been slowed down to match the walking speed

During that time Luna made a new map, showing a part of the wide more or less empty lands left of the forest:

In addition to that she spent a lot of time reorganizing layers and objects. The aim was to make it easier to work with the maps in unity. Since these changes have yet to be completed you will still walk behind lakes and other objects from time to time.

You can play the updated version here.
It is important that you delete your cookies if you still see the old game. You will see the forest map, if you have the correct version.
In addition to the changes to the game and map structure we made it easier to comment, by removing a security question.

I hope you will all test the new version and tell me how it feels like now.
If you have trouble opening the game please refrain from using google chrome and try a different browser.

Thanks for your continuous support.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

following the map from last time, which shows the forest entry i got another map of the forest for you, made by Luna.

As you can see the way stops and the forest unfolds... who knows what may be hidden at the end of the different paths...

Originally i planned on presenting you a download link today so you can download the game and play it on your computer. However some troubles with my webserver made me rethink that. For now i uploaded it as a web version.

You can acess the game under this link.

I worked on making the character walk upon pressing the arrow keys or wasd. In addition to that the camera now follows the player as well.

You can still walk of the map, even though nothing happens in this case.

I would like you to leave me a comment on how you think about the controls and camera.
Is the speed good, does it feel good or is there anything that should be adjusted?

Thanks for your continuous support.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hello everyone,

this week i got some great news.

A friend of mine, who i will call Luna from here on decided to help me with the creation of this game.

She will focus on creating all the maps for now while i dedicate my time to the game logic and making the game work.

This here is the first map she made, which shows the forest entry:

During the time that she spent on creating some awesome maps for the game i figured out how to import the maps into unity. (Well in the video i wrote about he mentiones which program to use and how to use it.)

Since i got nothing but an example map and a camera which i can move in there yet there isnt much to show you.
However i want to show you my rough drawing of the world map. At least the worldmap of the first few month/years that you will play.

  

It might be kinda hard to understand it, especially since its just a rough sketch. In addition to that the words are german. So let me explain what this is supposed to show:

On the top you can see some omnious purple clouds that keep you from seeing whats behind the water weel. 

The river goes from the forest on the right side to the mountains on the left(or maybe other way round) and below the water weel are some paths going through wide grasslands.

At the bottom is a beach with a few cliffs and stones on the left side.

My aim for next week is to import all of Lunas maps into unity and have a character that can walk on it. The game will grow bit by bit until i release it as a singleplayer, which you can download. I will post the link to it once its playable.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hello everyone,

i have been thinking a lot about how to continue this week.

After i decided to do an rpg like game as another practice game for me i decided to look on youtube for one.

The one i think is suitable is from a youtuber named rm2kdev and you can find his video series here.

He adviced people to use a program called "Tiled" from http://www.mapeditor.org/.
This program is an editor to make rpg maps out of sprites that can be found for free on the internet.
As a reminder: Sprites are 2d graphics like floor tiles or people from different perspectives.

I used the sprites from the following adress http://opengameart.org/content/liberated-pixel-cup-lpc-base-assets-sprites-map-tiles and made this simple map with it for now:

This will be the graphic style of my future game, at least up to the moment where i get a graphic artist into my team who can make awesome graphics for it.

For now i will continue the video tutorials and present you with the results in the next week.

Best wishes

Feliza

Good evening everyone.

After finishing my "Roll a Ball" game last week my focus this week was on getting some more basic knowledge.
In order to achieve this I watched various videos about the interface, tags, layers and other parts of the options and windows Unity has to offer. I will continue doing this for the next week and after that start my research on 2d projects with Unity.

So far i have not decided, if i will start my big project now or if i will do one more example game.
I would be happy to hear your opinions and suggestions on what to do next.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

this week i made some great progress and finished the whole "roll a ball" game which i just started.

Here you can acess the game and play it.

The rules are simple: use the arrow keys or wasd and move your ball to collect all yellow cubes.
If it is too easy try doing it without bouncing off a wall ;)

I am really happy i managed to make a cute little game within a week.

My next step will be to watch some more theoretical videos to broaden my knowledge.

Once i finished them i will work on applying the knowledge to my games.
Alternatively i might continue by watching some videos about 2D games.

There is a lot to learn so i will be busy working on something else that will be fun to play for you.

Best wishes

Feliza

Good evening everyone,

today i want to present you the result of all my work so far.

You can acess my game here.

Rules: Click the left mouse button to fire a claw and try to pull all jewels up to your gun.

Even though this game is still partly bugged and you have to wait a bit between clicks i hope you can get an impression of what i have been working on so far.

From this tutorial i learned something about the basics of how to write scripts, how to acess the objects i created, how to create objects and what kind of colliders and other things i can add to them.

Due to the fact that this tutorial was still too hard and didnt work well in many aspects i decided to  take a step back and try the "roll a ball "game starting next week. I will continue with this project once i am up to the task.

I hope you will check in next week again to see my results of the roll a ball game.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hello everyone,

i made some nice progress with the bug fixing this week.

The text is now visible, so i can start working on score and time next week.
Thus there will be different levels which randomly generated gems.
The ray is not going through my gems anymore but picking them up and retracting properly as well.

But well...

as you can see the pink ray doesnt disappear.
The gem keeps getting dragged left and right as well instead of disappearing.

So I got some work left to do in order to create a version which i can let you all play ;)

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

this week i managed to work on the scripts a bit. Meaning the gun is now rotating left and right and can kinda shoot a claw.

The rope will not stay pink in the end.
However i am having certain problems or rather bugs right now which i will focus on fixing next week before continuing the development.
The rope isnt retracting and isnt picking up the gems and taking them back to the gun.
Futher the texts for score, time and some others arent showing yet as well.

This was supposed to be a very easy example tutorial, however i am learning a lot due to unforseen difficulties which are popping up each time i do something. ;)

So i hope to make more progress next week and to be able to post a working version soon.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hello everyone,

this week i was trying to figure out how to use my graphics in my game for many hours.
I finally managed to get it working.
I created a mesh in blender(imagine it like a form where you decide the number of corners and all this) and put my gem image on it as a texture. this way the game object(the gem) can only be hit directly and not when you hit the cube around it or something.

This is what my game looks like within my development program right now. The blue area is the sky, in the middle of it you can see the gun which will fire the hook and well there is also a little gem. In the little window of the right is the camera view. So you can see that the background of the area without a color will look like earth or sand.

My aim is something like this:

Source: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/live-training-archive/creating-a-jewel-miner-game?playlist=17219

I will have rocks and gems and a turret to shoot at them.

I hope to reach a similar state(which you all will be able to play) in the next 1-2weeks.
Once this basic version is done i will  try to improve it with additional features to improve my skill.

See ya next week.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

thanks for checking in once again.

As i said before i was working on improving the look of my jewels a bit this week.

The result looks like this:

As you can see the ruby changed its color and shape and the diamond has the right form as well now.
Next i can either improve the jewels look further by adding some reflections or i can import them to unity and use them in my game.

Since my current project is nothing more than practise i believe that it is fine to simply use them this way.

You can look forward to seeing some screenshots of my game next week with the next post.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi guys,

today I want to introduce the different tools and software programs that i am using in order to create my game.

First off the most important one:
My development software. I am using Unity 5, which is widely popular among people who create games in their free time.
There has been a change from version 4 to 5 so some tutorials are outdated and don't work perfectly.

Anyway. With this software i can place many objects, write code on how they should behave and change the objects shape and position. I can also change the look of things and everything comes together in this program. With Events and reactions i can create a moving surrounding in which players can explore the different things there are to see.

The next one is Blender.
Blender is a program to create 3d Graphics. My aim is a 2d Game, so i will be using Blender for the landscape and map tiles and not for the characters. Its compatible with unity as well, so this works in my favor.
Blender is a software that is very hard to learn at the beginning though. It has a huge variety of functions and many functions can only be used if you know the shortcut for it on your keyboard.
Since my skills here are at the absolute beginning i will have to focus on learning them once i need the graphics.

So here is the last program i want to introduce: Adobe Photoshop.
I am not sure that i really need to explain such a well known software but anyway.... I am using it for my 2D graphics which i will import into unity ... once i found out how to do so.
It has a wide variety of functions and is a professional software used in many companies.


So that is it for my overview. I don't have any software to make some decent sounds or songs yet.
If you have any advices or questions feel free to leave me a comment.

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

here is this weeks entry.

I decided to make a simple jewel miner game as shown in this tutorial video.

In the game the player has a turret which turns right and left and has to fire a hook. When the hook hits something you pull it up and get points if its a jewel and not a rock.

I followed the first steps and created some objects in unity like the gun.
The game in the video was made with an older unity version.
Thus i decided to make the graphics on my own in order to learn how to handle photoshop and in order to avoid compatibility issues.

Well the result of my try to make some jewels looks kinda like this:

As you can see its a smaragd, ruby, diamond and a star.

For now i have to figure out how to make them look a bit better and how to import them to unity.

Since this will probably take a bit of time i wont be developing anything in the near future.

I hope you look forward to seeing some better looking jewels soon ;)

Best wishes

Feliza

Hi everyone,

thanks for checking in once again.

This week i focused on getting some knowledge about how to develop games using Unity.
Since i want to do a 2D game i started of in the Unity section for developing 2D games.
There are lots of great tutorials that can be found on the unity page, for example here: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/2d-game-creation .

So i watched the first video which basically explained about how a 2D example game was made.
They talked about physics, about graphics, about sound, about layers and animations and lots of other very interesting things.

They often said how they made sprites(2d images) with adobe photoshop and imported them into unity and animated them.
Thus i decided that i should learn some photoshop basics in order to make my own graphics.

Surely i could take them from the Unity Asset Store for free or buy them there.
They have a lot of great graphics there.
In order to develop the skills i will need later on, for some special graphics i really cant find anywhere I decided to make some little graphics on my own for now.

My next steps in order to develop my game will be to watch some more unity videos and find some tutorial videos where they develop a game from the beginning to a point where they end it.
I will then develop the game myself in order to get familiar with the usage of the Unity User Interface.

I will be sure to keep you updated on my progress so have a nice time and see you soon.

Best wishes

Feliza

Thanks for checking out my brand new blog.


First of all some basic information about the game that i will be developing and mostly writing about.
My game called "Noria" is a simulation, role play game which will be available in a browser and as a client game. It will become a multi player online game.
In order to realize it i will be using unity3d as well as some other programs.

In a later post i will be introducing the software and tools that i use in more detail.

Since it is a pretty big project i will be starting by learning to create projects in unity.

In the beginning i will be showing you some example projects which i made in unity in order to show my progress and to teach you about how to get started.

I will be posting at least once a week to keep you updated on the latest news.

I look forward to your comments and hope that i can show you the results of my practise soon.

Best wishes

Feliza