Weekly Sprint 4: Building
I have been having a lot of fun this week building my forest level in Game Maker! Because I am completely new to the software, there is a pretty steep learning curve for me that I am still trying to figure out. In fact, it is getting so overwhelming that I’ve had to “granularize” my Trello board even more! I needed to separate out each feature that I wanted to implement in the levels. From those, I need to research and implement them into the game so that I can create the best game possible. I’ve also determined that even four levels might be a little bit of a stretch to complete for the showcase in April. So, my goal now is to have two levels: one platformer with the panda character and forest theme, and a second level for a robot cleanup game that has similar objectives to the game Snake. While I am disappointed that I’ve needed to cut down my project once again, I want to create one great project rather than four little projects that don’t display my skills properly. I completely underestimated how much work and effort goes into the game-making process! You need sprites, rooms, objects, interactivity, physics, gravity, code, pixel art skills, and so much more! So, while I am having a lot of fun and learning so much each week, I really needed this reality check.
This week I have been focusing on the forest level creation. It still needs some work (I also think it needs to be more complex, but here is my progress at this point:
As you can see, the panda character looks a little out of place in the scenery. So, unfortunately, I may need to make some modifications with him in the future. This also displays the entire level in one screen, which was not my goal. I need to research how GameMaker shows the part of each room when a user is playing a game.
Also this week, I have reached my first block! The panda can move around the room, and collide with walls correctly, but all of his frames follow him like a tail…
So, I will be working on this issue over the next week, and I have also posted in the games slack SIG group to see if anyone can help me identify what is going on. Also by next week, I would like to have more of the user guide finished, as well as a few more advancements on the forest level (enemies, and coins).
’Til next week!
