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Gamedev - Blog Posts
Selective Interaction
Very simple, yet super useful, feature, now you can directly choose what to interact with when surrounded by multiple options. Don't ask what happens if you have more than 26 things nearby...
Dungeon
I present to you my first block out for a dungeon level. Yea, it isn't great lol. But with these pieces in mind, I was able to make a proper sketch
It still needs some work but I'm getting somewhere with it. If only writing the story was this easy...
NPC scripts
Don't mind me, just stress-testing to see if my NPCs can survive a morsel of the shenanigans players might pull. With some work I got it to fall through the floor but I'm unsure if my failsafe worked properly so I think I need to bully test it a bit more...
🤖 CENTAURI DARK IS AVAILABLE NOW 🤖
Centauri Dark is a stylish FPS bullet hell I've been working on by myself for months now - please take some time to pick it up, share it with your friends or drop it a wishlist if it looks fun to you! 😊
👇 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2669580/Centauri_Dark/
Itchio: https://devonwiersma.itch.io/centauri-dark 👆
NPC
How much is an NPC supposed to be capable of? I know some suggest giving them the player's capabilities, but does that help when they exist mostly for narrative rather than aiding core gameplay? I feel like mine are lacklustre... but maybe I just need more animations lol.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter?
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Needs some VFX, but at least how I built my system lets me turn any rigid body into something you can push around like this. Just need to set up another system to encourage you to move stuff around...
Camera Zone
Made this invisible trigger to move the camera around. All it does is tell my camera to focus on a new position and has settings to create a new focus point between the player and a defined position around the trigger. The transition could use some work tho haha.
Switches and doors... ignore the chest.
Quest System Cont.
Here is me playing through a short quest in an old tutorial room. I like this video since I engage with a lot of the mechanics I've been working on.
Ngl I kinda want to have combat take place on the same scene as exploration, you know Chrono Trigger/Sea of Starsy. However, to do that I'll need to do a lot of tweaking to my code and spend a lot of time redrawing enemy sprites I already made...
Tutorial Rooms
Both of these ended up getting scraped. oof
So I finally got to making a small video for pearlessential. Like the game, it was overscoped and I spent a bit too much time producing it, but I'm happy with how it turned out.
It also let me polish up my video producing skills which is nice.
Objective UI and Quest System
Mostly backend. As usual, it's a pretty jank system but it works. No quest markers atm but I've been considering them. I also want to look into optional objectives. This is the first time I've seriously considered how quest systems work and it's quite interesting. I need to find more references to study haha.
I am NOT stoked to create building textures, but I am stoked to see a textured building... so I guess I have to make textures one of these days.
I love this mini drop-down thing... All it needs is a scroll bar for when I really get crazy with it.
More Inventory UI
Still incomplete but now I can look at the items I have without using the debug console.
Inventory UI
It's shaping up, I think. I sorta hate the list format but like, what else is there other than grid slots.
Shader Bugs
The top image was a bug with my outline shader when I tried to replace it for another since it's not very performant and the second is a bug with my chromatic aberration shader that appeared out of nowhere after an engine upgrade.
I hate shaders so much. It is so hard to programmatically describe visuals. I am so jealous of people who are good at this. I've been getting better but like damn.
Support Action
This is a gimmick I've been looking into, at the cost of a turn you can bank an action to use later immediately after someone else. This seems pretty useless but could be helpful in applying status effects that can combine, I still need to think about it lol.
Platforming
Finally, put these guys back in here. They all have names, although I haven't brought it up much. Up front with the black hair and a weird mask is Alice Nor, Behind her in the poorly drawn armor is Jordan Flibeki, and lastly underneath the large hat is Phoebe Quin. These three are the first of 7 playable characters. I haven't really drawn the other 4 yet but I do know what I want them to look like. You can find the names of the other 4 on my very broken website which is not mobile-optimized -> https://pearlessential.webflow.io/
(Article) Dialogue Box with Simple SFX and Parsing for Pauses
This is a tutorial for Godot 3 I used to make part of my dialogue manager. It gives me animal crossing like SFX and the ability to have short pauses.
(Video) Loading JSON files for Dialogue
This is another tutorial for Godot 3 that comprises the other bit of my system. I cobbled together a few more features using my poor understanding of the documentation. I believe the author of this video has a more advanced JSON dialogue setup that might fit what you're looking for.
My system boils down to a state machine where each line in a dialogue is a unique state. The JSON file signifies all the states in a scene and alongside what should be said I can define other things I want to happen when a line is played, The most I've done with this is change an emote image or display additional text but I plan to base my cutscenes around it too. But instead of changing an image I might call for the camera to move, the game to fade to black, or for an NPC or Some other game object to play an animation. It's a bit messy right now but I've come to realize a lot of game programming is just a state machine in different contexts.
I wouldn't be scared of making a brute-force attempt either. Iterating is part of the creative process and even if it ends in failure you'll learn something new even if that's how not to do something.
Anyone know any good tutorials on creating dialogue/cutscene systems for RPGs? Preferably Godot but if there’s other ones with easily applicable universal principles that would work too. This is something that I feel like has lots of different approaches and I wouldn’t want to just brute force a really cluttered system for it.
Snow
Proof of concept, not sure if it will have any mechanical functions beyond maybe decreasing movement and jump speed and removing the ability to dash. I really need to get on making assets for snowy areas... I need to make more assets in general actually. Thank you to the super genius who posted this shader on godotshaders.com. This is practically witchcraft to me.
Obscured Objects
Not sure how well this will pan out but since the environment is in 3D and there is hella depth to work with I want to try hiding some interactable objects behind stuff or in an obscured fashion. Since you can't rotate the camera and the scene is orthographic I need to notify the player somehow that they have stumbled upon something hence the cool x-ray effect when you get close. I could add this to NPCs also which could be interesting.
Result Screen (again!)
All I really did was move it to the left of the screen compared to the one the older version of the game had. I like though since you could technically get back to what you were doing on the overworld while the game celebrates your victory (or uh discusses your loss) of to the side.
Xray Shader
Now it's really hard to get lost behind something. Not sure about the colour... Maybe I should use one from the 4 tone pallet...
Stun
I need to implement health in the overworld to complete this feature. I am also considering a hurt sprite but I'm lazy...