This milestone's goals were about trying to get my concept together, as well as be fully prepared to jump into working out mechanics and in-engine pieces for next milestone. The game plan is as follows:
- The player is a bird who is in a village full of other birds.
- There are ghosts who are stealing the birds and the player needs to save them.
- The player will find a crystal on the ground. They will dodge attacks to get to said crystal.
- The player will throw the crystal at the ghost to save the bird. The bird takes the crystal and runs to the side.
- A new crystal will fall from the defeated ghost.
- Once the player saves all the birds, a boss will appear. You cannot attack the boss.
- You must take the saved birds to points around the map while dodging. These will be indicated with a pedestal.
- Once all the birds are in the proper place, they will run in a circle to spawn a fairy ring.
- This will banish the boss and the player wins the game
I hope to be able to keep the game loop relatively short, but still fulfilling. It'll definitely need to be worked out, but I feel this is a solid starting point. I believe I can start building from here.
What went Right?
I feel that my communication went well this week. The reason I say that is because I know that I made great progress by reaching out to people and getting their thoughts or bouncing ideas off of them. A designer from my Ubisoft team was incredible help to aid in getting a loop started. I had a much larger game loop that was not going to work and he really helped in getting it sorted out.
I also reached out to friends in general and asked what they thought of the idea. It helped to organize what I was trying to say, as well as get opinions on things that would/wouldn't work.
What went Wrong?
I'm in a struggling stage with Unreal at the moment, where I need to watch a tutorial to really do anything new. This is very time consuming and therefore, my motivation for it has been a little lacking. But we are still getting through them and hopefully when I start getting more in-depth and creating new things from what I learn, the process will become smoother. I learned how to use the landscaping tools today, so that cleared up a lot of questions I had personally.
What will you Change?
I need to really dedicate my time to getting through these tutorials. I am a very multi-tasking type of worker. I like to have music playing or have something playing in the background while I am working. When I am following a tutorial, I can't do that. It's made the motivation hard, especially since I'm doing it all pretty alone since it's virtual. I will have to really crack down on it this week though and sit through the tutorials rather than putting any off till later "when I have more time"
Where do I need help?
I might be reaching out to friends more this week. I have found that chatting with people while I am working is making me feel more motivated. Even just having a discord call in the background has been helping me to sit down and get work done. I think I'll be trying to make more work sessions with people to try and stay focused in the very isolated time we are in.
I'm hoping next milestone will have progress in the gameplay. I'm working on the Ubisoft game as well and that has been a juggling trick. They are both benefiting each other though, it's definitely gotten me to learn Unreal faster by having 2 courses dedicated to the engine.
I'll also have a great time implementing the assets this week and seeing what they are like in engine!