Milestone Two Is Behind Us

Hello gamers, it's Jamie O here.  It has been a rough week.  On Wednesday we rolled out Milestone Two (to much fanfare, obviously), and I know that I--for one--spent a few days taking my mind off the game.  I was shocked to learn that I was registered for other classes, and had to actually attend them!  Can you imagine?

We rolled out a whole boatload of features recently.  Let's go over a few.

This cute fella is a skunk.  Boy, did putting in our first enemy result in a boatload of work!  First, I put in his CharacterController to make sure he'd respect the world geometry.  Then, we programmed his facing, so that he'd know which way he was going.  Right now, he acts according to a simple "bounce" pattern--walking until he hits something, and then turning around.  Programming--whether in games or in business--reveals a lot of system quirks.  One of the major quirks I ran into when implementing the Skunk was that Unity's collision detection is kinda loopy.  I needed a CharacterController for the Skunk to move around, but a Collider for when he touches the player.  And in order for it to work properly, the Collider had to be bigger than the Controller.  When I originally messed this up, the Boh Boy was about to stand atop his foes and fall off their heads!

Right now, I have no clue how to program the skunk's attack  I have no idea how he should hinder the player in a non-violent way.  I want to take a survey of a few gamers, and talk with my team, and work this out.

So here--at the bottom of the screen--is the touchscreen control system.  I'm no artist.  It looks horrible in this iteration.  But it works, and that's what's important.  We can now play the game on the tablet just as easily as on the PC.  I am going to rigorously test the controls for responsiveness as the game progresses.  One additional thing I'd like to do is have the touchscreen controls disabled on the PC version, so that they do not take up screen real estate when they would not be used.

At the top of the screen is the scoreboard.  It should be fairly obvious what each component tracks.  I'm completely satisfied with how it came out.

Watch out!  The Boh Boy has had a few!  The screen is rotating as designed, and this opens the door for more drunkenness effects.  The player can see their BAC at any time on the scoreboard.  In-game, there are eight tiers of drunkenness, making it easy for me to add new effects without getting over my head.  There is a lot of work for us to do on this base.

Over here we have the most recent title screen that I have done.  It's not the finished one, but it gets the job done.  We have a main menu that lets us start a game and exit.  Right now the How to Play, High Scores, and Credits options are just for show.  Don't worry, we'll make sure your scores are saved.  We care about your bragging rights.


Even though there has been a lot of changes, a lot more are coming.  A big visual update is on the way, where I'll be including the most recent work by our artists, and updating the tileset so that we're visually coherent with their new assets.

We have done a lot of work.  There is a lot more to do.