Farer Dreamer Devlog

  Fall Week 9 Worklog So this workweek (10/23/2024 - 10/29/2024) was a bit slow as I gave myself some free time for Halloween stuff, BUT I still did some work because I can't help myself. I didn't take note of what I did on the specific days so I'll just summarize. For starters, in engine I've continued to chip away at Cloudskipper's mechanics. I'm getting closer to cracking the problem I'm having with Doc not following the spinning platform's transform. In the meantime, considering I'm running into issues with this stage I've decided to alter my schedule a bit to stay on track with the other stages. I've decided to switch around the model refinement due dates for the subway and press 'n hold since they're more environment heavy and most of the things I need to model for those stages aren't going to be heavily involved with the code like how the cloudskipper platforms are.  That was a yap TLDR; I swapped some due dates around as I...

  Fall Week 8 Worklog 10/16/2024 - Cloudskipper Greyboxing With my player controller and such FINALLY in a working state, I began working on putting together some rough modular assets to greybox out the cloudskipper level. I want this level to feel surreal and liminal in nature, I'm pulling from a lot of surrealist and weirdcore/dreamcore artwork and photos when thinking of how this thing should be structured. While getting the basic modular pieces made and beginning to assemble the stage I realized another really good source I could try to pull from for this would be Mario 64, as many of the levels in that game have that sort of aura I'm going for with the Cloudskipper level(s... If I have the time). That'll be something I do later this week though. For now I don't really have much to say aside from I spent today's work period (roughly 5ish hours give or take) learning and playing around with probuilder in Unity, creating some structures with those tools, and I beg...

  Fall Week 7 Worklog 10/9/2024 - I GUESS WE DOIN' ANIMATIONS NOW! So initially during this work period I was attempting to do some coding to get this player and camera movement system DONE, but I've realized it's a bit hard for me to focus when working in-class and also missing my second screen makes working in unity and coding stuff a bit of a pain. Not impossible of course, I've done it before but it definitely slows down my workflow compared to when I'm at home and can focus better. So because I wanted to be productive this class period I decided to start getting a jump on Doc's player animations, as while it's still far off my internal due date for that is sometime next month. I knew I wanted them at a 3/4ths angle instead of having a front, back, and side sprite. I mean, they'll still have a front and back sprite technically but no left/right so that frees me from needing to animate the walk, jump, land, and whatever else for those....

  Fall Week 6 Worklog I spent most of this week tweaking my schedule (also moving it to trello so I can split the levels and such by lists and also have something to yell at me HEY YOUR DUE DATE FOR THIS IS COMING UP) and, again, working on the player and camera controllers. 10/6/2024 Haven't touched this project in a minute this week, but I think I've made a good chunk of progress today! It doesn't look like it visually, but code-wise I think I've finally found something that will hopefully play nice with the character animations I'd like to implement. The camera is the biggest thing I've realized I need to learn more about as most of my 3rd person games in the past have had cameras that were not controller by the player. While I did play around with some camera stuff today it was… Not very successful. I am not sure what was making the camera orbit it just did (the stretch was due to me cranking the FOV up, for the sillies) The thing that's currently makin...

  Fall Week 5 Worklog 9/29/2024 Finally getting my grubby little hands into the game engine. My goal for this week was to get a basic player controller and camera working while. Ultimately I decided that it'd be neat to have the player character flip like they do in paper mario as opposed to having the characters just billboard depending on camera view. Ironically I feel with the billboarding effect I was initially wanting to go for it'd be hard to get a sense of depth/position. Doc's actual sprite animations aren't done, so for now I just have a placeholder Doclet. While the flipping mechanic worked, I noticed the walk animation activating upon landing as well as my movements being a bit floaty feeling with this first go at things so I needed to play around and research more, but hey it was a start at least. 10/2/2024 So this week was basically mostly dedicated to getting the player movement controller refined. Did I succeed by my internal due date? No not at all I got...

Fall Week 4 Worklog: Visdev 9/28/2024 Not a whole lot to talk about, mostly just been putting together my pitch presentation and finalizing the production schedule. Aside from that I've been chipping away at some visdev stuff as I've worked on that, have a look! Concept art for Press 'N Hold! …This thing took a stupid amount of time because I thought "oh if I just do it in my painting style this'll be quick". I was wrong <3 This is why we thumbnail!! A thing I love forgetting to do for whatever reason, you'd think I'd learn by now.   // Inital sketch and WIP. Spot the differences lol Cloudskipper Oh god this one , heeeey so remember that Chase level concept? Well itsssss this now! I decided to shift gears and focus on making it a short platforming level. Admittedly I am still on the fence about this level's aesthetic. Originally I was leaning towards some sort of dark factory/facility where you'd have to evade a monster that's constantly...

  Fall Week 3 Worklog: Game Mechanics and Levels (Take 2) 9/16/2024 - One! More!! Time!!! So! After doing my informal project proposal and getting feedback, I've decided to rework what I had going from the last entry on this topic. Most of this week has been spent refining my to-do list/production schedule for each of the levels as well as preparing my actual pitch to the class on the 25th. A lot of this is gonna be repeated from the last entry, just better refined (though I did trash some things for now. whoops). General Gameplay Mechanics Basic 3D environment movement, jumping, and a dash. Player HP - Three hit system, HP will recover when the player successfully completes a level The camera will be 3rd person, controlled by mouse movement. Camera will remain static unless moved via left click + mouse The basic gameplay loop is as follows: Player starts out on the subway The subway stops, player exits Player enters a random level, subway leaves Player explores the level and finds...

Fall Week 2 Worklog: Game Mechanics and Levels (Take 1) 9/8/2024 - by next week I am going to be taking a hacksaw to like half of these ideas I figured I should actually, y'know, write out what the gameplay mechanics and such are for this thing instead of just spinning them around in my head at maximum velocity. yapping below the read more if you're interested General Gameplay Mechanics Basic 3D environment movement, jumping, and a dash. Player HP - Sliding health bar? 100 HP? The camera will be 3rd person, controlled by mouse movement. In SOME areas it'll be locked to one perspective (like the hub area) Maybe I'll have the player be able to zoom in and out via the scroll wheel The basic gameplay loop is as follows: Player starts out on the subway The subway stops, player exits Player enters a random level, subway leaves Player explores the level and finds the subway car door once again Player enters the subway, loop During the intermissions in between the levels, the p...

  Fall Week 1 Worklog: Rough Ideas and Main Characte r 9/3/2024 - There's art in this one I swear Planning… Scheming, even Because I admittedly don't have a lot of concept artwork done for this project, my informal pitch presentation I'm gonna put together for class is mostly going to consist of my mood board images, games I've taken inspiration from, and a rough idea as to what levels I'd like to make and the "storyline" of this game (aka, Doc just wants to go outside and touch grass). I may also get into some of the NPCs I hope to include in the game that the player can talk to, but I also don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Anyways here's my rough ideas thus far, this is gonna be more of a ramble/brainstorm as opposed to something put together super neatly lol: Story… Farer Dreamer is a game about a character named Doc who felt their life was too stagnant and wanted to go out and explore the world. They board a magical subway car named ...

  Intro 8/29/2024 - Welcome to the next roughly six+ months of my life! maybe more! oh boy! Here is where I'm going to be documenting my overall thoughts and development on my senior thesis project, as it is required as a part of the grade that I keep a devlog. Posting it here wasn't a part of that requirement, but I thought it'd be easier to share. Whether you're a friend I sent this to or someone just happening upon my little corner of the web, welcome! I'm going to be doing a lot of yapping <3 For the time being I've named this project Farer Dreamer. In summary, it's a 3D (…maybe sometimes 2.5D) exploration game where you ride a subway car to… well wherever it decides to take you really. You'll explore the random levels the subway takes you to and maybe meet some interesting characters on your journey. Admittedly this project is more of a last minute decision as opposed to something that's been marinating in the back of my mind for the past fou...