*I accidentally deleted my actual text which I wrote for about half an hour and now I’m trying to write it all over again. fml

Hey there.

This post will be about our current development regarding TDOR and about what I have been doing with my time for these few weeks.

I’ve been quite busy with a lot of things. As an (assistant) lecturer, I was busy with preparing exam questions and assignment briefs for the current semester. That and some admin technical issue that has been taking a lot of my time.

I’m also working on a game project with some of my fellow colleagues. We’re doing like a simple platformer game based on local folklore and proverbs and using said proverbs for its game mechanics and stuff. I’m kinda passionate about this project as this is like the first proper team that I have been actually developing a game with.

Though this is their first game development so it is kinda scary for them. For one, our project leader is more of a research person rather than a game dev, as well as one of our 3d modeler. the other modeler used to be my student, now she’s a research assistant ( or officer? I’m not sure what’s the difference actually) so she’s ok. We have an artist who’s a colleague of mine who incidentally very busy with a lot of stuff, which makes getting in touch a hard thing. And we have another programmer who’s working with me on the game mechanic. I’m focused on the game design and programming.

But enough about that project. Imma talk about TDOR now.

As of now, I was focusing more on the actual story and I’m working on a new animation. I wanted to focus on my strengths and I felt that I have more passion for doing the animation for now. So, I kinda tried to recreate the attack sequence from Dynasty Warriors 8 ( attack by Sima Zhao and running by Sun Quan). The timing is still in the works as I’m considering the speed of the attack in relation to my own game. That’s the gif on top of this post.

I’m also working on a new custom character controller. Before I used a package which I download from Unity Assets, but it wasn’t really as fluid as I wanted it to be. Plus I kinda did something to my project folder (again) and I am forced to recreate the whole game from scratch. Again.

But no worries. I wanted to do this in the first place. Because in my previous project, the character wasn’t stand alone, meaning that if I were to import the character prefab with its scripts and all, it still wouldn’t work as it was dependant on other stuff in that project. So I’m thinking of changing the workflow of that.

So that’s the next step. Adjusting the animation, and reworking the character controls. Afterward,​ I’ll probably adjust the character model itself. Probably give it more realistic proportions or stuff.

But I’ll be frank. The development of this will probably not continue in the coming weekend as I’m planning to join the Ludum Dare Game Jam. we’re doing a real world gathering in Shah Alam in another university with some other game devs and students. It’s been a while since I’ve joined a game jam and I feel like I need a break from a lot of things.

I feel at times really really tired of a lot of things. I’m tired of doing nothing at times. and this feeling of wanting to leave this job to pursue my passion for games is really growing by the day. So, I needed to surround myself with other game devs who share the same passion that I do.

Now I’m surrounded by people who’s motivated by pursuing their masters and PhDs and stuff. I really felt like it out of place most of the time. it doesn’t feel right. I’m not doing justice to the students. they deserve someone better.

but that’s a story for another time.

So I’m gonna postpone the origin story pt2 for TDOR for now. That story will come later. if there are any new updates, it’ll probably be related to the game jam.

So wish me all the best. And hopefully, I can see myself finishing what I’ve started years ago.

Laters.

• Faisal Athar Bin Mohd Fadzil

ps: the feeling of writing this is totally not the same feeling as I had when I started to write this half an hour ago. I​ tried my best. :\