Prototype Progress
Not a lot got done this month due mostly to a lot of stress coming from my day job. However, I did manage to find some time here and there to flesh out the framework for the Adventure portion of my game. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of visual stuff, so here's a single .gif that shows off all the new stuff:
Here's what was in that gif:
- A Config menu skeleton
- Working saving and loading functionality
- A title screen
- UI Event scripting (e.g. display this portrait at this location, animate the portrait, change the portrait, remove the portrait, etc)
- Word wrap in the message box
- A lot of data validation and error handling
This is all pretty basic adventure game-y stuff, but it felt good to get it all set up and the work I did this month will make things easier for me down the road. Luckily, these things didn't take as long as they could have because of previous experience I have from making two Adventure game engines in the past.
Goals for March
It has come to my attention that March is NaNoReNo which basically means that there's a bunch of internet people making visual novels this coming month. It sounds like fun and will probably be motivating, so I want to participate. The only way I can do this though and have it not stop progress on this project is if I put together a rough draft of the adventure portion story! So that's my goal for March: create a rough draft of my adventure story IN ENGINE.
Those last two words are important because my engine is definitely not finished. As I go about creating a rough draft, I'll learn a lot about what my story is even going to be about and I'll run into things I want to do that the engine can't perform yet. Finding these things will lead to me implementing those features at least in a first-pass form. With this goal in mind, I should also end up with a lot of rough art and features that will make for a very lovely post next month.
Roadbumps
A big part of the reason that not a lot got done this month is because of stress from my day job, but as hinted at in the title, the rest of the reason is that my windows drive is dying. All my work has been backed up, but watching my computer slowly die has really slowed down progress and everything else on my computer as well. An SSD should arrive today (Feb 28th) so hopefully by the time you read this post, everything will be resolved. (Edit: Everything took longer than expected, but all data is safely on a really fast SSD now)
Feedback
Please let me know what I can talk about in the coming month or what I can do better on posts in the future in the comments below.
