S-T-R-E-A-K-E-R DAY 4 out of 7
Hey hey everyone! Back with another dev log for S-T-R-E-A-K-E-R. If you missed the first one, click here to catch up on what this project is & what I'm doing.
So, for the last 3 days, what's happened? Unfortunately, not a lot. On Monday, and part of Tuesday, I spent my time figuring out what engine I was going to use for the game. For those who've read my previous dev log, this might sound a bit odd considering that I said I was going to use the Superpowers HTML5 game engine.
Well, here's what happened:
I wanted to add accessories to the game. Think cosmetic items that you can equip and change the appearance of your character. HOWEVER, the way I was animating the sprites was to use some software called Spriter which works off a bone-based method. Basically, you cut your sprite up into different parts [ arms, legs, head, body, etc. ] and attach each part to a specific bone in an armature. Using this method, you're able to create pretty decent animations rather quickly as all you have to do is set your key-poses and the software will tween the bone movements for you.
SO, you pose you characters and then render out your animation into a typical spritesheet. Sound good?
EXCEPT, what if you want to allow for accessories, like I discussed above? You can't just place a hat on top of your sprite, because when the head moves around [ like it should in a good running animation, you know, jiggle a bit and what not ], the hat wouldn't move with.
There are ways around this, such as creating a bone sticking out of your sprites head [ the bones are invisible in the output, don't worry ], and then attaching any hats to that bone, for instance. HOWEVER, this requires your game engine to be able to run the bone metadata from Spriter. Superpowers doesn't have support for this [ although it may be possible to add it, since some bone-animation software outputs simple JSON ]. SO, I was left with a choice:
- Find a different engine that supports bone metadata
- Find a different way to animate sprites
I unfortunately chose incorrectly and went with the first option. I figured using something like the Phaser game framework would be just fine. HOWEVER... Well, honestly, Phaser is a fine framework [ I've used it before myself and can personally vouch for it ], but I'm just to rusty with it. And plus I love using Superpowers, even for all its faults / missing features, I just feel much more confident in it. As in, when I develop in it, I feel cozy, at home, comfortable, at ease... I know how to implement at least a rough draft of most of the things that come to my mind when making a game. I don't get that with other engines, especially ones that I'm not so familiar with.
So Monday and half of Tuesday got virtually wasted as I pooped around trying different solutions. Ultimately, I ended up coming back to my sweet baby Superpowers. I then spent the rest of Tuesday figuring out what new animation style I was going to do in order to support an accessory system.
THE SOLUTION: TWEENS 😍
I swear to god, I use tweens for practically everything, they're so useful! And this case is no different. I broke my sprite into 4 parts: head, body, arm, leg. I then lay these on top of each other in Superpowers, and use some simple tweens to rotate them in order to give the look of idling around, and running.
Other than that, on Wednesday and into Thursday, I spent my time laying out the football field that you'll be running around in, making a bunch of goofy accessories for you to collect, and getting a very rough and basic football player to chase you around [ no tackling as of yet ].
For the field, I decided to add a bit of a 3D effect by making the walls actual 3D objects. The player and football players are also tilted at a slight angle, along with the camera, giving a semi-3D feel to the overall game. This is a super tiny and somewhat subtle effect, but makes the entire world more fun & feels better.
OH, I almost forgot, I also got a HUD implemented today. I drew up a D-Pad, some buttons, and a-... Well, you'll see in another blog post ;-)
The D-Pad was interesting, as it's the first time I ever made something like it. Pretty proud of how it turned out, although it is rather simple.
OK, THAT'S ENOUGH READING, RIGHT? 📖
ONTO THE PICTURES! 🖼
please cover yourself, think of the children! 🙈
THEY. WANT. YOUR. BODY. 😱
hmmm... maybe spawning a footballer every frame isn't such a great idea... 😬
sure, I could call this a bug... but I could also slap a "premium-feature" label onto it and call it a day 😏
woo-hoo! A nice 3D-ish field to run around naked in! what more could you want? 😊
Thanks for reading this [ long! ] dev log everyone. Who knows if this shit will be done for Sunday. And at this point, who cares. The game is coming along fine [ slow, but fine ]. I'll release it when it's ready. Besides... Maybe releasing a game on a day where everyone will either be in front of the T.V. or at the tables eating isn't the best idea in the first place ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
See ya next time!
What Is S-T-R-E-A-K-E-R? 🏃
S-T-R-E-A-K-E-R is a goofy little webgame I'm making about getting naked and streaking across the field during gameday! My goal with this is to go from complete scratch -> prototype -> actual playable [ and hopefully enjoyable ] gameplay within 7 days. I've done this stuff before in the past, and figured this would be a good way to "shake the rust off".
Follow along my progress where each day I'll post a short dev log showcasing the latest stages of the gameplay. Will I be able to make the deadline of Super Bowl Sunday [ February 3rd, 2019 ]? Only the game-dev-gods can tell...
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take care! :^)