Game Dev Diary for "Daughters and the Exotic"

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coatofarms wrote:

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BearCares wrote:

It was hard today. That's what she said.

I lol'ed.

Keep it up! I also don't know much to anything about coding. But I like the pictures you uploaded. The 3D modeling process (purple lines) looks really cool.

haha thanks, I like looking at wireframes too

@qqwwqwqq

Will I release a demo?

Sure, I have a big picture story and scope in mind and written down. But for this I'm just working on the first scenario which is planned to be about 3-5 hours of gameplay - . If I can get the first 3-5 hours to be something that's high quality, I'd release it.

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Tonight, I pulled a kid Goku. After headbutting my enemy and knocking him down I myself passed out too, and took an involuntary nap. In other words, menus are working. And I've started putting them in.

This means that I can start writing battle formulas. You know how GGG has equations for calculating attack damage, shock damage and poison damage and stuff, now I can start putting conditions like those into the battle system. VERY FUN!

I need a screenshot so here is a random piece of code that shows how I call up a memu pfft - There's probably a better way to do all of this, but this is how I set it up. One cool thing though is that I asked a Python/Blender game engine expert for advice on how to search a list of scenes for a specific element and then I compared the code he wrote to the code I wrote, and both of our code worked, except my code was 5 characters shorter. When I realized this, I was like WUTT??!! That was the highlight of my day lol

That must have felt real good. The apprentice shall become the expert :)

Sounds like it's going well, BearCares.

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BearCares wrote:

I need a screenshot so here is a random piece of code that shows how I call up a memu pfft - There's probably a better way to do all of this, but this is how I set it up. One cool thing though is that I asked a Python/Blender game engine expert for advice on how to search a list of scenes for a specific element and then I compared the code he wrote to the code I wrote, and both of our code worked, except my code was 5 characters shorter. When I realized this, I was like WUTT??!! That was the highlight of my day lol

Nice.

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BearCares wrote:

...Grendel is a corporate security officer who finds himself hunting down a team of mass shooters who are active on a deep space research colony of 50,000 souls. But before any of that can happen he has to agree to work on the distant colony to begin with. However, due to a lack of faster than light travel travel, agreeing to take the job costs him more than 40 years of cryostasis time, which means by the times he arrives on the colony the human race and culture has changed to such a large degree that he can barely recognize it. That's all of the story that I will talk about from this point on.

Small thing I noticed before, and now you have some posts up I might mention it and it not be too much. 40 years? Ripley was 57 years in stasis, between Alien and Aliens and not too much had changed. While the culture and people won't change much with 40 years, the dislocation Grendel would feel would be more than enough to have him feeling mighty and out of place. In a way, the subtle changes over 40 years in design, language, mannerisms, dress, and tech would be far more surreal than massive ones over say 400.

I'm curious about Machine God Hera, as the original Hera was the prime domestic goddess, as you know.

BearCares: Have you watched a film called Pandorum? The general plot you described for your game reminds me of that movie.

If you haven't done so already, it might be worth your time to watch Pandorum. Even if the movie doesn't influence the plot of your game, you'll likely enjoy the movie. It's one of the best "spaceship" science fiction movies I've ever seen. I am oblivious why Pandorum sold so badly.

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coatofarms wrote:

That must have felt real good. The apprentice shall become the expert :)

Yeah and everytime I have a thought of what I want to do and then when I get it right on the first try it's always a shock followed by evil laughter.

@erdelyii - I didn't know that about the aliens time line. But I understand what you're saying. In my mind though a lot can change in 40 years time. For example from the 1950s to the 1990s. If you are a racist white guy in the south part of the US who got shunted from the 50s to the 90s, then your whole shit just got blown up. All your values are going to be under fire pretty much. Because people's minds changed. I'm not expert on China or Japan but I think they made huge sweeping changes to their societies in a similiar time frame. In other words when I say he doesn't recognize the culture I'm not necessarily talking about science only.

And Hera... part of the fun with her is to start out by seeing what I'm thinking of as a disheveled middleaged woman wearing a dirty baseball cap and gradually over time gaining an understanding throughout the game of why she is called Machine God. I want people to accept her as Machine God without even understanding why at first. Because that's what we do everyday in real life. We just accept things without knowing for sure what's going on. Like if an 8 year old tag football player's dad introducees him to Bill Belichick and says, "This is Bill Belichick, son. He's a great man. I want you to shake his hand." The boy will be like, "OK" not having a clue who Bill Belichick is or what it means to be a 'great man'. He accepts it for the time being because if he stopped to question everything he didn't understand there'd never been any time for him to play and enjoy flag football or whatever. For adults, instead of flag football they have to make time for their job and kids. So adults do the same thing the 8 year old boy did. And Grendel... well Grendel has his hands full and there are a lot of things going on that he has questions about. So Hera is someone he'll just have to learn more about whenever he has the time. That's just how i think about it.

@coatofarms

I haven't even heard of Pandorum. But there are so many stories being told around the world that overlap is inevitable. Just like with people, for example, I have two eyes and a mouth. And I'm 90% certain that you've got two eyes and a mouth as well - I can't be sure, it's just a feeling I've got. And if I'm right then that means that yes we're pretty similiar. Also, our lives are pretty similiar too. For example, you probably ate some food today just like I did. We're twins lol

To bring the point on home today I was modeling some boots and I put two spikes on teh back and two spike on the front and when I looked at it I thought, "people are going to say I copied PoE's the Blood Dance". But then I realized PoE has like 100 different shoe designs and trying to avoid resembling all 100 of them is just silly. So I didn't change them.

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Anyway, diary entry is that I programmed all day, then modeled 3 boots. I'm just gonna save the boot models up until I have like 50 of them. I think it would be a more interesting post that way.

Anyway guys/girls thanks for the conversation, after a full day of coding it was nice to decompress a little and also think about my designs at the same time.

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BearCares wrote:

@erdelyii - I didn't know that about the aliens time line. But I understand what you're saying. In my mind though a lot can change in 40 years time. For example from the 1950s to the 1990s. If you are a racist white guy in the south part of the US who got shunted from the 50s to the 90s, then your whole shit just got blown up. All your values are going to be under fire pretty much. Because people's minds changed. I'm not expert on China or Japan but I think they made huge sweeping changes to their societies in a similiar time frame. In other words when I say he doesn't recognize the culture I'm not necessarily talking about science only.

I understood that you mean culture; the example of desegregation in the USA makes sense. I hadn't thought of that, probably because I think the future is much steadier. Partly, I think for Earth to have a viable space program and be sending out spaceships, the people who are part of that are in a stable system. Plus, it's the double imagining that eluded me, projecting into the future. Easier to just imagine little change in the recent past (which is the future).

So you're inventing a similar level of change in values for your protagonist? Interesting.

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And Hera... part of the fun with her is to start out by seeing what I'm thinking of as a disheveled middleaged woman wearing a dirty baseball cap and gradually over time gaining an understanding throughout the game of why she is called Machine God. I want people to accept her as Machine God without even understanding why at first. Because that's what we do everyday in real life. We just accept things without knowing for sure what's going on. Like if an 8 year old tag football player's dad introducees him to Bill Belichick and says, "This is Bill Belichick, son. He's a great man. I want you to shake his hand." The boy will be like, "OK" not having a clue who Bill Belichick is or what it means to be a 'great man'. He accepts it for the time being because if he stopped to question everything he didn't understand there'd never been any time for him to play and enjoy flag football or whatever. For adults, instead of flag football they have to make time for their job and kids. So adults do the same thing the 8 year old boy did. And Grendel... well Grendel has his hands full and there are a lot of things going on that he has questions about. So Hera is someone he'll just have to learn more about whenever he has the time. That's just how i think about it.

That sounds like a lot of fun, and forgetting who we are or not knowing in the first place then finding out is a story that resonates with me. Yes, I didn't even flag Grendel as a significant name in my last post, but of course, it is. Thanks for sharing that, it was enjoyable to read and have an insight into your thinking.

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BearCares wrote:

I haven't even heard of Pandorum. But there are so many stories being told around the world that overlap is inevitable. Just like with people, for example, I have two eyes and a mouth. And I'm 90% certain that you've got two eyes and a mouth as well - I can't be sure, it's just a feeling I've got. And if I'm right then that means that yes we're pretty similiar. Also, our lives are pretty similiar too. For example, you probably ate some food today just like I did. We're twins lol

To bring the point on home today I was modeling some boots and I put two spikes on teh back and two spike on the front and when I looked at it I thought, "people are going to say I copied PoE's the Blood Dance". But then I realized PoE has like 100 different shoe designs and trying to avoid resembling all 100 of them is just silly. So I didn't change them.

--
Anyway, diary entry is that I programmed all day, then modeled 3 boots. I'm just gonna save the boot models up until I have like 50 of them. I think it would be a more interesting post that way.

Anyway guys/girls thanks for the conversation, after a full day of coding it was nice to decompress a little and also think about my designs at the same time.

Sure thing.

Wise approach. Quietly, I think coatofarms was being enthusiastic, rather than saying you were veering into derivative territory or needed inspiration. I get your response - you are focusing, relishing the creative process.

36 seems to be the favoured number. If it were any other way, story-telling wouldn't work. Like with a person that stands out, it's what excellence lies within the expected structure in the way of narrative (personality, what we make of experiences) that makes those qualities shine, by comparison and by the interaction with our own narratives. Plus, with the boots, there's a reason schema and schematic are related.

I might watch Pandorum.

Oh yeah: I didn't mean to come off as a smart ass in my responses it's just that I've always had a strong philosophy as to the 'this reminds me of that' comparison. Even when it's not directed to me. Because and I don't mean this in a bad way, almost anything can remind everyone of something. For a reason. Because everything IS connected. So when someone says, this reminds me of that, I always have a knee jerk response to start going down rabbit holes.

I eman seriously... isn't it freaky how similiar everyone looks to one another? That's why I mentioned the two eyes and a mouth thing. It is weird, I mean why are we so similar? I mean isn't this awkward? To be so similiar to one another? It's the elephant in the room. I wasn't trying to be a smart ass or anything.

Anyway... I might not code at all tomorrow because its been consuming everything. This gun honestly sucks but I didn't spend any time on it. Let's see if I can make it presentable by tomorrow.

Why? Because it's Grendel's default weapon.

Tomorrow. No code day. Leggo'

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BearCares wrote:

Anyway... I might not code at all tomorrow because its been consuming everything. This gun honestly sucks but I didn't spend any time on it. Let's see if I can make it presentable by tomorrow.

Why? Because it's Grendel's default weapon.

Tomorrow. No code day. Leggo'

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Didn't take it that way. It is actually nice to see the thought process.
cool stuff

Yep.

Blender Game Engine is basically a discontinued, unsupported game engine at the moment. It hasn't gotten any new amazing features in years as far as I know. Because of this, unlike Unreal there is no robust particle system that's optimized for real time that I'm aware of. But there are methods.

So I spent most of my time today learning more about blender's animation system. The plan is to use animation mainly for special fx. After going to stackexchange and watching some blender tutorials and trying things out myself I feel that there's a lot of things I think I can do in an efficient manner. So I'm optimistic. Which makes me kinda nervous.

But anyway I was thinking about my last opinion about my gun model I posted. That it was bad. I thought about it and realized it was because I had just come off of polycount and looking at what the triple A professionals or highly skilled students were doing.

And so I started adding things to it. But I realized I wasn't making it better, I was only making it busier. So I scrapped most of what I added. Because I think I can make the most out of my modeling ability by pairing simple meshes with interesting textures and animations instead of trying to emulate people on polycount who go complete obsessive compulsive on every little nook and bevel. I was never an anal retentive perfectionist anyway. I'm a revisionist. I love improving things but to model a vertex perfect anything doesn't really suit my brain. I mean I'm the guy who plays Cast When Stunned. I do what I want! lol

Btw, quick rant. Polycount is a noob trap. Stay away from that place. Two of my favorite recent series are Etrian Odyssey and Persona Q and pfft their meshes look more like mine than Anthems. Point being, game developers, amateurs whatever... be smart about what you do. And do what you can do. Don't look too hard at other people, but of course learn what you can.

No pics today because it would just be code and animation graphs like the last time.

Captain's Log Stardate 2259.55:

Coding your own games is NOT easier than you think. This is my first game I'm trying to code. And that commercial was not completely wrong. The syntax and logic behind coding a game probably isn't as hard you think. But what is hard to navigate are the traps that you'll set for yourself as you do it.

I think I finally understand why game companies release patches to fix one thing, that only ends up breaking 10 other things. It is for this simple reason: The disconnect that exists between a human being's output and the source of said output - the brain.

You see, when you code, you'll have moments of insight where suddenly you're way more clever for the next few minutes than what you normally are. Which is a eureka moment. You solve a puzzle elegantly and with delicacy and abstract sophistication. Yay, right?

The problem occurs when you go to sleep, wake up the next day and have no idea what the fuck it is that you were doing on the previous day. You start typing in some new text, and suddenly everything that you built up begins to collapse.

Long story short, hug a programmer today. Start with GGG staff. Just hug one of them please.