More level design
Continuing with level design, here are some shots at the recently made rooms.
Some more shaders to display the player health status have been made (poison and fire), but most importantly, I started working on magic spells.
Using rocks from my in-development Low Poly Rocks asset (more on this below), I made an earth hammering spell, spawning multiple spikes to push back and damage small and medium enemies, followed by 4 huge pillars to insta-kill small and medium enemies and push back and damage big enemies.
Code rework
It will soon be 2 years since the development of Defense of Humanity has started, and it also means that most of the code is starting to be quite old and that since the start of the project I’ve gained a ton of experience in programming.
That said I decided to rework almost the entire code, to improve readability (trust me you don’t want to see that mess) and optimization. I already spent an entire week on it and it feels so great to be back working on a clean project.
Some mechanics have also been reworked, for example you can now choose to buy a specific gun instead of random gun boxes (random gun pickable still available), and I made pickable guns and health items to replace the boxes. Looks great, feels great, no regrets.
Player animations are still in rework and will be finished as soon as the code rework is done.
Almost 3 months after the initial release on Android, the next huge update of Ahead is almost ready, it will add the most asked features :
- Quests : Time and Move Count objectives for each level will bring a new challenge beside just finishing all levels. Finishing a quest will reward you with credits, a new currency.
- Cosmetics : Player models, player colors, trail models, trail colors, track line colors. All of these will be unlockable in exchange of credits earned by finishing quests.
- Touch controls : Move the camera around the player using touch controls to get a better view of the surroundings.
- Optional ads only : No more unwanted ads between levels! You’ll be able to watch ads to get more credits at the end of a level if you finished at least 1 quest, but no more annoying random popping ads when finishing a level.
- Cancel last move button : To restrict the use of this feature, it will require watching an ad. Using this feature remains optional as it comes from a mistake.
I’m also actively thinking about reworking the main menu once again. I’m satisfied with the level selection panel but everything else would benefit a rework.
The game ASO will be entirely reworked so the game can be accessible from a simple search. The name of the game might need to be lightly modified.
No name project
I would not call this one a new project as it’s using the tile building system I’ve made a while ago, albeit reworked, but this is definitely a project I’ve been working more on recently.
The project name is still pending, it really depends of what will be the theme of the game, but I already have some ideas.
It is basically a sim-based management game where you can build shops customers goes to buy items according to a procedurally generated shopping list. The basics are done (Camera controls, Building controls, Customer behaviors) and the project is ready to enter a more serious development phase (Let’s make a game out of it!).
Assets Making
I’ve been running out of funding recently, meaning that any unexpected expense for a project can’t be afforded. So what am I going to do ?
I can’t run a kickstarter for any of my projects as I don’t think these are polished enough to be worth a fully pledged campaign yet.
Then I thought about Patreon but I don’t feel like having enough time to create regular content for patrons, and as far as I know that’s how Patreon works.
So the solution I’m going for is creating assets (Unity focused for the moment), I feel like selling ressources I could even use myself would be a great way to still be working on my current projects and at the same time bring in some fundings to cover any unexpected expense on my projects.
The current asset packs I’m working on are :
- Realistic Voxel Planets and Pixel Art
Will feature all 8 planets of the solar system + 12 asteroids and an asteroid field, 3D voxel painted according to NASA texture maps, in addition to 80 detailed pixel-art sprites (4 for each planet and asteroids).
Expected working time : ~ 500 hours
- Low Poly Rocks
Will feature 250 different low poly rocks models, a wide range of sizes from pebbles to mountains, coming with a custom easy to setup shader for adding snow and moss on all models and choosing the base color.
Expected working time : ~ 350 hours