It’s Officially Summer!!!

Ooooooh yeah! It’s summer. When I have not a lot to do. I have a lot to say today. The first thing is that this game has been in development now for about a year now. Well, to be specific the idea of the game got started a year ago while the actual development has started later because I first started using Unity as the initial game engine. The problem I had with it is the fact that I felt that the way it was designed was a little bit overwhelming especially I had to learn how to code in C#. I have a C++ book with me but it was still overwhelming. Then I updated Unity aaaand my character couldn’t move period. And I had no idea how to fix that. So, I scraped Unity, and went with another game engine called LÖVE which has a specialty with making 2D games(there is a way you can make 3D games with it I heard but it’s complicated). But I scrapped that one also, which I kinda didn’t want to, because there is no UI with it meaning that you had to either literally drag the file into the game engine(when it’s just a file on a computer, not opened) in other to open the game which was an inconvenience. I loved the coding language that was used, Lua, but that inconvenience with the game engine. Another thing that also lead it to be scraped is the fact that because I’m planning to animate the characters’ sprites, I would need to make lines of code to look for those files which is 100% not my specialty. It’s the thing I struggle the most when coding in any language.
Then, I remembered that the friend of mine that helped me out during the Unity months also gave an example of one of his games on Godot but then said that there is little of documentation for it. Boy, you wrong! There is a lot now and the reason why the game is now on Godot. Also this means great news for me if I ever want to sell a finished game down the line because with Unity I’ll need to get a license if I want to sell any of my games meaning that I’ll have to pay monthly fees and will potentially open a kickstarter because being a highschool student with your parents getting angry if you get even C’s and that doesn’t have a social security number at the moment I can’t pay Unity a couple of bucks. Hell not even a penny.
That’s why it’s best to deal with open source programs and not commercial programs unless you don’t have an option :D

I also was planning at one point of trying to make the game in Unreal Engine(the only thing for you to do is to pay this 25% royalty if the game is on sale and say that this game is made in the engine) but at the same moment when I thought of Godot, Unreal Engine got thrown into the trash bin. Specifically the recycling bin because I’m planning to make a 3D game at one point so I’ll keep it as a candidate for that game, but for now, Godot it the man.

‘Nuff said with the anniversary of the game now let’s get with some goodies :D

Code

At the moment I’m sorta taking a break from it(mostly because I’m still angry with myself for updating the game engine) BUT! I did figure out a solution with the interaction problem. Because the fact that signals(basicaly lines of code that sends messages) create a function, I can make a statement something sounding like this:

Function MouseHover Signal:
If Left click is pressed:
follow da mouse

Well, that’s not how code looks like but that’s a translation for them folks that aren’t really into coding. The only problem I have is the “follow da mouse” part which I haven’t figured it out yet and that’s why I’m kinda taking a break from it.

Art

This is the part will have LOTS of pictures which everyone loves!
What we’ll be talking about is something had on my mind ever since the last two months of school and that is the design of the main character, Connie Roth.

Let’s just call her Connie ;)

After looking at how adorable she is let’s talk about the issue. “But what issue does her design has?!” you may ask, “She’s perfectly fine!”
Okay then, Let’s get her to remove her cloak.

Yeah. I initially did this because I didn’t really know what age I wanted Connie to be but now since I figured that part out, I chose the age of eight by the way, it doesn’t really fit in. Yeah I can let her stay bald but then I’m planning her to end up in a formal situation and one of the concept arts is her wearing a wig which started this mess.
I have created a chart of possible hair styles. If you like one the most, please say it in the comments below so that I know before Beta phase which is when I’ll be animating her sprites. And I don’t want to redo it in the middle of this because the animations will be drawn by hand FOR EVERY SINGLE FRAME. Here’s the chart:

I personaly like #2 and #3 which will turn out like this:

I might end up just going with #2 for simplicity sake. I would love to see your thought down in the comments ^-^

Life Stuff

Besides me making the game, I have life to deal with. The first thing is that I will have THE-SUPER-INTENSIVE-THREE-WEEK-MONDAY-THROUGH-FRIDAY-2PM-TO-4PM-INTENSIVE-GERMAN-COURSE!!! and then after that I’ll be going to a summer camp where we just go to places like the Museum of Science in Boston or Fenway Park, which is also in Boston.
I live a half hour away from Boston, what did you expect?!
Beside the fact that I live in Boston, expect delays with the game development.

That’s all for today,
Au Revoir!