Survive The Day Dev Blog 1: New Beginnings

Survive The Day Dev Vlog 1

Intro

I'm not going to recap everything said in the video in text here, but I will recap the intro in a different way. The intro ended up longer than I wanted in the video, but I thought it was pretty important if someone wanted to understand what I'm working on right now.

In short, I'm working on getting features into my project in a modular way. This basically means they can be easily turned off, scaled up, and modified without needing to do significant code changes and bug troubleshooting.

Let me give you a for example. If you are familiar with Survive The Day level 1 and 2, you know that in level 1 Dave is trying to avoid Chatty Cathy, as usual. In this new version, I'm introducing a simple duck mechanic. In level 2, there is no stealth aspect and the duck mechanic is not needed. I'll be using the same project file for both, therefore, the duck mechanic will be "turned off" or disabled for level 2. This might be with an if statement or a boolean flipped on or off, but the point is, I won't need to go delete the duck code for level 2, or comment it out, or some other major edit.

As I explain in the video, I've come to the conclusion that I am okay with using the same art for multiple games. I am curious to hear what people think about that, so feel free to give me feedback on that. But if you take a realistic perspective, there is only so many games a solo developer can make, especially when they work on it part time. Since I'm proud of my Survive The Day art and it takes me a while to create new art styles, I'm okay with using the same art style if it might allow me to make more games in my life.

Feature List

Here is a list of features shown in the video:

• Character Animations
• Dynamic Characters
• Movement
• Z Index
• Collisions
• Doors
• Zoom
• Controls
• Gamepad, keyboard, mobile
• Player Pathfinding on click
• NPC Pathfinding
• Dialogue
  • Talking/Dialogue Boxes (new fonts)
  • Dialogue Pause timer/next
  • Pop up dialogue
• Line of Sight (LOS)
  • LOS Canvas
  • Los to player
  • Eyes (LOS, looking)
  • Idle animation (dave's eyes)
• Duck
• Interaction check
• UI changes when interaction available
• Interactions
  • Talk
  • Think
  • Sit (up and down)
  • View poster
  • pickup
  • Copier
  • Computer startup
  • Plant peak
  • Coffee pot
  • Mop
  • Elevator button
• Stealth Prototype
• Roll
• Cubicle Bounce
• Head turn (emmanuel)
• Tom help you out of elevator
• Cut shots

Some of the features still need some work, naturally. Part of that reason is a lot is not decided yet or the decisions will need to happen later when other aspects are determined.

What's Next?

Menus.

Right now I'm really wanting to knock menus out. That doesn't mean I WANT to WORK on menus - I WANT to get them out of the way, haha.

But seriously, I'd like to get a pause menu and options menu out of the way. Be able to pause, go to settings, adjust audio volumes, screen resolutions, dialogue options, such as font and text speed, and other neccessary options.

Of course I'll also work on some fun stuff as inspired, and especially look to continue experimenting with the stealth prototype.