I’ve spent the last week moving Desert Child from Game Maker Studio 1.4 over to Game Maker studio 2.

Bit of a rough start, but it mostly seems in order. Most of the bugs arose from they changes to how views and cameras work in Studio 2. The engine does generate compatibility code for anything that uses the old systems, but I’ve been trying to go through everything an just rewrite it myself.

I’m actually amazed that the shaders and particle systems transferred perfectly. I was really expecting them to just screw up horribly.

Aside from that, I’ve been working on a couple of walk cycles for the main character. I’m not totally happy with them, but they’ll do, since they’ll be scaled down so much that only I would notice the dodgy shading.

I’m really keen to get back to building the weather system in the game. Right now, it just rains all the time, but eventually, there will be actual weather cycles, with the city changing depending on the weather.

If it rains, any street vendors will be closed, and pedestrians will be sparse, but the canals will fill up, and fishermen will come out and sell you fish. After it’s rained, sushi will be much more expensive, because the stores will be restocked.

There’s a whole bunch of little things like this I’m putting into the game to make the world more dynamic. For instance, there are markets that are only open on certain days of the week, so you’ll have to plan ahead to make sure you have money to spend at them. They’ll be cancelled if it rains, so you’ll have to wait for the next one.

Criss-crossing these elements is the notoriety system, which increases the bounty on your head every time you take an illegal side mission. Every time you turn down a new street in the city, you have a chance to bump into the Kariudo (Huntsmen), who will chase you down and try to collect your bounty.

Your notoriety decreases each day you don’t do something illegal, so there’s a back-and-forth pull between earning the big bucks doing illegal jobs, and keeping the Kariudo off your back.

Next devlog:

The Music of Desert Child

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