I’m fairly pleased with the progress so far on the gamejam entry. My little game, at least currently titled Phoenix Rise, though I’m debating other options, is actually pretty much a real game at this point. Still a bit buggy, and certainly light on the content, but it’s a game. It’s got a proper start screen, and end screen, a score meter, a moving player character, viable obstacles, useful game pickups, and at least a very rudimentary form of difficulty progression along with a loss condition. No real win condition, but that was never a part of the plan, it was designed to be a “beat your own best” sort of experience. And it’s even mildly engaging.
And that means that I have four days left to polish it up. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to complete, but I’d like to get a lot more level variety, as well as just general polish on the graphics overall. Right now I have no background images, and my obstacles are just simple blocks. I’d love to get some fire effects on my phoenix, and ideally get its wings flapping. And I’m hoping that I can get some more advanced music in there. I’ve got something mildly decent right now, but it is very basic and chiptune sounding, I’d love to try to get something overall a bit more epic sounding. I don’t know, maybe that’s too much, if I keep the music in a chiptune style it will work well with other low-poly, low fidelity style assets, which may be better given the time constraints. I can always come back and make an HD version of the game after the jam is over, and once I’ve made it through my music 30/30.
Speaking of the 30/30, I’m pretty happy with the result of today’s sculpting practice. Not specifically because I think it’s good, though I’m not disappointed with the outcome, but more because it’s not absolutely terrible, and it’s something that I’ve been wanting to sculpt from the very beginning.
The last time I tried to sculpt a squirrel it wasn’t even remotely recognizable, and while this one could certainly be better (and I’m sure I could probably improve it with a bit more time than I’m giving myself for it) I think it’s at least recognizable, and pretty decent.
Also, lesson learned, or at least a firm reminder given. Always save your work. Being me I decided that my little squirrel here needed fur. I’ve never actually tried to use blender’s fur particle systems to create actual fur, but I was willing to try. Trying out a test render in the viewport crashed the application, and for a minute there I was pretty sure all of that sculpt work had gone to waste, and my poor squirrel was no more. Fortunately I was able to recover from an autosave, so crisis averted, but that was a bit too close. Apparently remembering to save often as I go is another skill that I need to get back into the habit of doing, it’s funny how the old ways start to slip when you spend a lot of your time working in things that autosave.