But then again, when do I ever?

Decided to semi-revisit an old favorite idea of mine, with a sorta virtual pet. With a twist. I didn't think about how much art this'll need though. Oh goodness I'm in over my head.

I'm pretty sure I haven't focused this long in a really long time. I guess that's a good thing :P But starting to feel it already.

PROGRESS!
http://imgur.com/XPFPblV.png

And by that I mean horrid developer graphics. But that's ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWicaXXfpEE

Alright! So, my virtual pet now has stats that drain slowly over time. Will need to balance these of course, but whatever. You can also click on the different things in the room to make it go over there and perform an activity. At the moment, this is standing in one place while stats adjust faster.

I've also got some primitive AI in place, where if certain stats get too low then it might choose to take care of them itself. I'll need to balance this - I still want it to be possible to "die" and right now it almost always chooses to act immediately. Might need to move this code in with the stat update "ticks".

Going to have a "care" value that holds how much the creature likes you. Dunno if I'm gonna have it drain like the health stats, but I definitely want it to go up with some optional activities and go down if the creature's stats are too low.

Seriously, don't. You'll be guaranteed to have to work over the weekend. :P Only reason I feel I have a chance is because my schedule today is skewed towards morning, leaving me more evening time. Rough wanting to code while stuck at work though.

Hoping to work out some of the creative stuff on my breaks though. Color pallets, finding reference images, brainstorming. Etc.

...and failing miserably

After a long day of work, hard to concentrate. But it'll probably be better after dinner. I DID, however, get some very basic menu controls in. Now to put stuff into the menu...

https://gfycat.com/UnselfishRespectfulCuscus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfT7BRN79M

Progress!!

I may ditch it depending on how animations work out (oh god, drawing real art), but the creature now "paces" back and forth when not doing anything

Added a "cloth" to the menu to clean the creature up when it gets stinky

Added the ability to change the food type. Purely aesthetic right now. Hoping that creature type will be able to only eat certain types of food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WvYgLhc2M

Mix n Match creature care simulator is sorta a go. Still have a lot of art to go, even just placeholder art. Need proper death indication Already hating the pacing, so I may scale it back to a very small area if the creature is mobile Yes, some creatures may not be mobile Some might not be able to survive either

Tomorrow's goal is the last of the placeholder art, and then the dna mixing sequence. The logic for that will be dead simple...I hope.

Just looking at that creature hurts my brain.

Why oh why oh WHY did I leave this to near the end. And why was this so hard to figure out. I guess I thought it'd be easy. Guess I'm too used to the way Game Maker handles it (aka super duper omg this is so simple).

As I have to work all day tomorrow, I'm really gonna have to push it tonight if I'm gonna get this thing to playable status. We're getting close. Two scenes to build (thankfully easy ones, I hope), then maybe some sounds. The art can stay as horrible as it is. It's a game about gene splicing anyway. Maybe there's a default "ugly gene" you can't get rid of.

Four hours of sleep is enough, right?

Normally, I'd say no. Except I have to work all day today, which would leave me maybe an hour for last minute polishing before the deadline. Knowing myself, probably not gonna happen, so I'm calling DNAPet done.

It's...playable. There's a lot of balancing that needs to be done. There are effectively no animations, just simple coded things like flipping sprites to keep it from being toooo static. But there's simple sound effects. And background music! I've definitely learned a lot with this project, and really that's why we do these things, right?.

Need to write a proper post-event blog entry. The good, the bad, the new. Later though. Hoping to carry this motivation into the other projects I have in the works too.

In the meantime, DNAPet is "done" and ready to be played.

Aka, ahhhhhhhhhh

First, the timelapse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43zut5CUOzQ

Turns out I had juuust under 14.5 hours of footage, which is pretty impressive considering that I had to work all weekend.

This was one of those weird ideas that hits you in the shower. Virtual Pets are one of the game archetypes that easily spring to my mind, and it had been on the list of potential options since the theme voting. The thing that pushed it over the had was the mental image of combining dna and getting weird mutant creatures out of it.

Things I wish I could have done better
I know "art" isn't the point here, but I've seen some really nice stuff done very quickly and I really don't like most of my art. Guess just mark it as something to practice in the meantime. On the other hand, definitely will want to focus harder on getting the actual game working before stressing too much about art. One of the downsides of my concept is that things have to be kinda recognizable. All things in balance. Also I had several issues with Defold suddenly insisting there was a problem with my images that's only fixed by restarting the editor, which a google search indicates they're aware of anyway.

Things that went well
Well... I finished it, for one. Or maybe "finished", in quotes, because there's still a few things I would have liked to add but didn't have time, and there's a lot of balancing that could happen. But still! It's done, and all the important bits work. I learned a lot about Defold's GUI system. I have other personal projects that I really wish I'd have known some of the things I know now. And I managed to keep screen changing really simple by keeping each screen as basically its own object, or collection in one case. Not that this is useful for most games - it doesn't store information between screen changes easily - but here it works near perfectly.

What didn't make the cut
The biggest thing that didn't make it was that I originally planned to have the simulation have a finite ending. As you cared (or ignored) your creature, it's "alignment" would change. And then after a set period of time, you would release the creature into the wild and see the results of what you'd unleashed upon the world. One of the "body parts" that beginning DNA can be set to is "the mind", which would affect how easily your creature was affected by your actions, and in some cases also affected the starting alignment. I never got the system implemented beyond starting values, but it'd have been cool.

The other thing that didn't make the cut was, you know, actual animations. But I guess that's not important in the long run. The wheel "spins", and I used a code based hack to make the head occasionally look the other direction to prevent it being TOO static, so it works.

Game link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/dnapet

Let's give this another go, shall we? Work schedule is even more lousy than last time, so hoping to keep it simple.

The concept is hopefully simple, although far from unique. Get to the bottom of the level, avoid the obstacles, and collect the gem. Planning on having a few levels and maybe a backstory that fits with the theme.

So far I have the player character that can move back and forth, stationary obstacles, moving obstacles, walls that merely block your movement, and a gem to collect.

Next up is a simple level select screen I think, and maybe starting on some simple art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX1KE-U9xBg

Also first level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5jgb6CjX8Y

I'm not really a level designer, so so far I'm just spamming obstacles and then playing to make sure it's beatable. Wonky ghosts are ghosts because birds and bats are hard to draw. Thinking I'm gonna make the bottom lava just reset you instead of acting like a normal "lose a heart" obstacle.

Need to start contemplating sleep...but with work all this weekend, I'm not gonna have much time unless I give up a little sleep.

Ok, ok, you caught me. I've stayed up a goooood four hours past my intended sleep time. BUT, I have one completed level. All mechanics work. I even have a primitive intro to the game.

Fingers crossed, as I have several long dayjob work days ahead of me, but I think I can focus on art and level design now. Ideally I'd like for every level to have its own background, and maybe its own reskins for the obstacles. We'll see how the time goes. I simultaneously feel like I'm reaching too far AND that I'm doing way better than the last jam. Just gonna come down to how the time works out. And no one said backgrounds couldn't be totally abstract or whatever.

I didn't get only 3hrs sleep. You did.

So day 2. And by that I mean off to the day job. Plan for today is brainstorming and/or napping during breaks, getting in a few hours work after I get home, and then crashing. I may try to do some pixel art on my phone. Downside, it won't make it into the timelapse. Upside, getting things done away from my laptop.

Turns out drawing sprites on my phone is gonna be more tricky than I'd thought. BUT it is possible.

There is now a level select, though who knows if I'll finish all 7 levels

And a shot of the second level

The word cutscene is used very loosely. Basically, after completing a level, there's a small animation as the next level unlocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02XQVOA25Zs&feature=youtu.be

And below is a sneak peak of level 3. It's sorta a difficulty spike from the previous two levels. May need some balancing, but it's definitely winnable.

And alas, I'm running on three hours sleep as it is and have another long day of work ahead of me. Gonna try to wake up an extra hour early, get some drawing in before work. And then stay up as late as I need to tomorrow night to get it done. Unfortunately, I am working past the final submission time on Monday, so I've gotta get this thing done by monday morning.

Well, I only have one more level to draw. Then sounds. I was hoping to also include an optional "random" mode that just randomly spams obstacles on an empty level, but we'll see if there's time.

I'm very tired of drawing backgrounds and sprites. I think this last level will mostly just use all the sprites from prior levels. Even though half of them will make no sense.

Anyway, here, have a screenshot of some random sprites.