*Early Development*

Frame of Mind 

In the task's infancy, I was under the original impression of bringing my visual novel Timorous: A Tiny Tale  (TBA) to life. I had finalized the game design and even posted the first log. Until, like many others before me, I was infected with the infamous scope creep. Coupled with the Unity fiasco and the budding sense of conflict arising within me in regard to continuing to develop on the engine, I realized it was in best interest to pause development on Timorous for the time being. Instead, we pivoted to a game that could be feasibly realized within the time frame that was given to us. Dragana bequeathed a stately title to our new project, and Realm Riser was in the works.  Game muses were of the 80s analog dark fantasy PVP(or in our case NPC) combat variety. 

Things That Worked 

• Recollection Redux has a layer mask interaction system that I really enjoyed structuring. However, it needed tinkering for 2D. I found this incredible  Unity dialogue system series(link here)  using the interactive narrative scripting editor plugin Ink. Using the sleek and simple interface of the Inky editor made me feel like a playwright. Incorporating the JSON files into a fluid dialogue system with persisting variables and cause and effect took time, but ran like smooth butter in the end.. Expect Inkle exploration updates.  Unity may not be the best, but damn do they have some nice extensions! (cinemachine anyone?). 

• Speaking of Cinemachine, I set up the cameras and implemented the Confiner function - I really like the fixed FOV style.  After lingering in the Cinemachine body for too long, I set up an interactor system and 2D character controller with flip sprite.  As early September waned, we concluded with team Git compilations and ports. 

Things That Didn’t Work (Yet!)

• I dipped my toes into tilemap, tile palette, and slicing and epically failed! I need to play with and research the underpinnings of this system more.  I’ll be testing out sprite and tile-making systems in Godot. We will see how that bears fruit. 

• In a previous project, I had tested out implementing an enum-based sound manager. It was a no-go, so I went with another implementation. I like the idea of a serializable inspector, drop-down selectable, enum-referenced script and was itching to see if I could finally get that implementation to work here and I failed again! History repeats itself and I chose an alternative implementation again for RealmRiser. Choci VS EnumSoundManager is at a rough  0-2 .

Thanks for listening! 

XOXO,

ChociMilki