Hey everyone, how’s it going?
Last week I decided to take a slightly different approach to setting my task list. I realised there were some big areas I needed to focus on getting to a certain point before going back into iterating on each task. I think it really paid off as I managed to get those areas into a state where I feel they are mature enough for me to move onto the next phase of work, which is level design.
So a brief recap:
- Refine the movement – after some tinkering and playing around with other platformers I feel I have gotten the movement to a point where the character feels like what I had originally planned.
- Refine some of the designs – I realised that what was affecting the look of a lot the enemies was diagonal and thin lines. They were showing up pixelated but not in a nice clean way. I made the decision to use simply straight lines of circles. This has really cleaned up the design and look of the game. An important lesson I keep coming across is sometimes limitations can generate the best design.
- Get a solid behaviour programmed for the boss – I did a lot of research last week on boss encounters. I used my learning to choreograph a much more detailed boss encounter. I feel confident with the current state of the boss now and the direction I am going with it as I mature it later on.
- Finalise the view size – this was an easy one. I was watching a level design talk about N++ (I added it to last weeks Vault) and they mentioned a 720p screen ratio. If it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for me 😉
On top of all this I managed to get a really good start on the level design. I knocked up around 50% of the levels I plan to go into beta with and a few extra ones for the final game!
As last week’s focus on large task areas worked really I’m going to continue the same. This week’s tasks are:
- Finish the remaining 50% of beta levels
- Generate a banner ready for marketing purposes
- Decide on the soundtrack and SFX of the game
Thanks and speak to you tomorrow!
Stav