Blogs - Grahamcracker25

I've been a bit delayed on posting a new devlog because ultimately, not much here has changed. One thing that has changed though is: in my FPS, I've decided to scrap the "Wave" style maps, and convert them into "Spec Ops Missions" instead. I'm currently just continuing to add to environments in my FPS, adding in various missions and tasks, and I have the basic missions and game manager setup in one of the Spec Ops missions maps. I chose to do this because, for one, ultimately it was an easier task to accomplish. And, I want this game to bring back the core heart of gaming. And for me, one of those things was old school Call of Duty. Even in the newer CoD's, such as Modern Warfare 2019, I loved the Spec Ops missions, and I chose to do that with this game. As of now one map is almost completed, Then, I need to continue to work on the other two. I want at least two for a game demo that I'd like to publish by the end of the month. The missions in the demo, in comparison to the released game will be a bit shorter. My ballpark for these spec ops missions is to have them take approximately 20 minutes each. The reason for this is because I want it to be available for the person who only has one hour to play, or an entire day to play.

Another thing that has "changed" is that I've decided to return to college, use the rest of my GI Bill and get my bachelors degree. I figured why not just do it while I'm ahead and get the bachelors. While it's not necessarily needed, especially since I've gotten my foot in the door to do some work with an Indie Studio, I've realized that it will really open the doors of possibilities for me: higher pay, developing more of an expertise in my field, potential to be an educator in the future, and much more.

Really though, other than those two changes, I'm mostly just conducting business as usual. I also am planning on joining a group of students who I got my associates degree with in creating a project as well, and I'm looking forward to that.

Overall, a lot has been done over these last few weeks.

I did receive an opportunity to do some work on a project basis with a newly established Indie studio. I'm very excited to get to work with them and all of the experienced developers on their team. With that being said, I have changed up some routes in my development. I will discuss this later in the post.

I'm still working on my FPS game, and will continue to do so. I've continued to add in some dialogues, and really hone in on my talent doing environment. I've 3D modeled some buildings, and have created the large zone and 2 "wave mode" maps for the game. They are far from complete, and have a lot to work on. But I'm looking forward to completing them. One of the Wave mode maps is a Missile Silo at a remote military installation. The other is in a dungeon-like environment that is dark and covered with skulls and dark imagery. Overall the game is really starting to shape together. I still have some functionality to add, UI to change and edit, and dialogues to add all over the environment. Ultimately though, the game is coming together and I'm sure I can at least have a demo up by the first quarter of 2025, if not even Nov-Dec timeframe of 2024.

In regard to my new opportunity, the plan with them is to develop in Unreal and in UEFN. With this, I've been taking time to mess around in UEFN and re-acquaint myself with the software. I'm really enjoying it, and have learning how to model terrain, and layout prefabs the same way you would in other engines, as well as begun to learn the basics of devices in UEFN. Ultimately my goal is just to make a good free-for-all shooter map. Nothing crazy, just hone in on my ability to create digital worlds and make them come alive. With this I've begun to revisit Unreal Engine as well, and have started navigating the interface of Unreal as well. I'm basically taking just an hour or so every other day to educate myself, or just get into the habit on using the tools in the engines themselves. With this being said, I don't want to say that this will be the end of being a Unity developer for myself, however, I'm unsure if I will continue to develop in Unity once I'm done with my FPS game. I mean realistically my FPS game will be a game that I could continue to update and keep alive for a long time. It may end up being my last full Unity project, as my new focus is learning Unreal and UEFN.

Two other things that I've decided that I want to do as a solo-dev have also come into my mind and I've began brainstorming ideas for them. The first one is, I want to explore the "Extinct" game engines. I want to explore old game engines that we no longer use, or maybe modern ones that are almost unheard of or rarely used. I want to do this for fun, and I want to make at least 3 mini-games in 3 off the wall game engines. I don't intend for any of them to be the craziest games, I just want to really experiment with other engines and have some fun with it. I think while it may be somewhat gimmicky, I think it'd be a fun thing to do and an opportunity to learn more about development, programming, level design, etc. The other idea I've had lately is creating a website that hosts various online games. HTML5, WebGL, maybe even Javascript games. I'd like to put together a platform that has a variety of online games that users can visit to play fun small games in their free time, or at work on their break, or in the computer lab at school. I think this is very doable for me as I have the ability to develop games and websites. I'm not sure how I could monetize it, or if it would even produce any revenue. Ad revenue is certainly an option but realistically, it's limited to a small amount of revenue. Ultimately, I don't care if it makes a ton of money, I care more that it's a paltform that people can enjoy games on in a browser, just like we did back in the day. I'd like to see browser games make a comeback, and I think with the rise of Indie games hitting the market with more popularity, I think that it's a very viable option to get a games name out there.

Ultimately, these 3 personal/solo projects still have a TON of work to be done. And none of them will be completed in the next couple months by any means. That being said, I'm looking forward to embarking on the journey to complete all 3 of them.

In addition to this, I'm going to be posting on my YouTube channel video updates of all of these things. I posted one video of early, early FPS game footage and got comments of people wanting to see more. It really inspired me to keep going and keep working on my projects to achieve my goals. So to those people, if you ever see this, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to what is coming to me as a developer both in my own personal endeavors, and with the new team that I have been fortunate enough to be accepted into.

Overall, a lot has changed over the last few weeks:

I have decided to put my murder mystery game completely on hold. Taking on multiple large projects is just too much for me at the moment, and I really lost track of the narrative of the game. I plan on visiting that in the future, and really buckle down on my shooter game.

That being said, many of the features and code I used for my mystery game have been utilized in my shooter game, such as the dialogue system, audio triggers, and basic horror elements have all been implemented in my shooter. The main map is still far from completion, and the maps for the wave mode are in their bare-bones stages as of now. The environment of the game is really starting to come together, however there is still a lot of work to do.

Dialogues have been added to the main game mode, that tell the player where to go and what they're doing. The next step is beginning to implement the objects that the player will have to retrieve. I'll also be putting a compass, and UI to display the objects the player has collected in an inventory panel. I'm still debating a mini-map, and if I do include one, I think it'll be very basic. I want this game to have some challenge, and I think maybe a mini-map that isn't dynamic, that the player has to actually read and use the compass to find out where they are adds to the challenge of the game.

As I mentioned the maps for the wave mode have also begun taking their early forms. As of now I have concept sketches for all 3 of them, and two are in their early stages of development. My next step with that is creating the spawners for the enemies, and a game manager that will control the game in rounds based on the number of enemies, and when they're all eliminated. This is very similar format to CoD Zombies.

Another project has begun, which is a much smaller, fun project that I took on called Cannon Cornhole. It's... pretty self-explanatory. It's cornhole, but with a cannon. I'm really looking forward to designing the levels for this game, and figuring out a way to implement scoring, games against AI opponents, and possibly even online multiplayer in the future? For now, I'm figuring out the way to implement the basic game modes, and then working with that to create a fun, small cornhole video game.

Overall, development is going very good right now in-between all of my other ventures in life. I'm hoping to have at least a demo of my FPS game on Steam by December. However, I know it's going to take quite some time to refine everything, get all of the features up and running, and develop that demo.

Since my last blog post a couple weeks ago, not a lot has changed drastically. I've done a ton of work on the FPS game, getting the terrain modeled, 3D modeling some buildings, downloading assets, and setting up the terrain. I've also added in a particle system for the snow, and there is a lot of snowfall during the game. The first level is still far from complete, and I have more AI to add. I also need to get the current Spider Ai animated and functioning.

In my Murder mystery game, I've... somewhat changed the story. Moreso adapted. I'm considering changing the name. For now I'm sticking with the Mystery of Beanville but I'm considering a name change. Ultimately, there is no murder mystery anymore, and it's just portraying a story. But.. there is still somewhat of a mystery within the story. So that's an ongoing battle in my head that I've been having. I think just "The Horrors of Beanville" could be a sufficient name for it. I've also come to the conclusion that it's essentially a 3D Visual Novel, so I've decided to drop the price tag. I just want it to be a game to show that I can portray a narrative as well. I think I may setup a donation link but, I don't for-see it being worthy of a price-tag. Especially since I will be putting a price tag on the FPS game. With that project, I've begun developing the next set of chapters, and I've almost finished all of the dialogue. My next plan is just finishing the dialogue. Then, after that I'll add more gameplay tweaks and refine it a bit more, then, get to work on some basic cutscenes. My goal is to have this out by December of this year, so I'm hoping to at least have the gameplay done within the next two months. I'd also like to begin working on the cutscenes that'll be in the game, however if that ends up being the last phase of development then so be it. As I mentioned previously, cutscenes are one thing I've never done, so I'll be learning how to do them. I'm planning on keeping them very basic and simple, so hopefully it'll be simple. On that note, if any readers have good Unity Cutscene tutorials, please feel free to drop them in the comments of my post here.

Going back to my FPS game. I have the story set, however it isn't completely written. I also have a LOT of work to do on the environment and I'd ultimately like to really show off my level design skills with this game. I have a lot of 3D modeling to do. For this game, I'd like my demo out by December of this year. Then, I'd like the game to be out sometime in the first quarter of 2025. Hopefully by the end of February.

My next step, in terms of marketing, is to have Steam pages up for these games. I also want to get a bit more of the game polished, so I can at least have trailers up for each game by the end of summer. I'd like to have the steam pages and trailers up by the end of September of this year for each game.

For now, I'm still getting to work on both of these projects as much as I can. I'm overall enjoying the process of developing these games again as I'm learning new things, and ultimately I am excited to get these two projects out there in the world.

Over the last couple weeks I've done quite a lot in development. I took a short break from the Mysteries of Beanville, and created a small, 2D Adventure game. The game was made in about 4 days, it published on Itch.io, and is a quick, 20 minute adventure. However, I made a lot of progress in The Murder Mystery as well. I enhanced the dialogue system, I completed the level design for the entire first chapter, I begun working on the levels for the second chapter, and I completed the rough draft of the storyboard with all 5 chapters designated.

My next step for the Murder mystery game is to add in a save system, and begin working on the cutscene for chapter one. I've never done a 3D cutscene and my 2D cutscenes have been very basic. So, I'm looking forward to learning this basic cutscene process. If, I can't figure it out, I can use the dialogue system to explain the dialogue in the scene. Also, no audio for the words at all, it'll just be a text pop-up. I'm doing this to keep the player engaged by reading, and to keep it easier on me as cutscenes are new to me.

I also began working on a new project. A Survival Shooter. The player takes the role of a PMC, who is stuck in the remnant land of a nuclear catastrophe. The game will have the player fighting off mutated animals (right now it's just spiders), navigating various obstacles, collecting valuable artifacts that were stored in the bunkers there, and rallying up with their comrades. I'm using a template I found on the asset store. I'm very, very excited to finally tackle a FPS game after years of development. This is my first time truly doing it, and I'm glad to see my growth as a developer. The fact that I know over the next few months, I can pull this off, to me is almost a dream come true.

Overall, my goal is to publish the Murder Mystery sometime around Thanksgiving of this year, and I'd like the shooter to be published by March 2025. I think these goals are reasonable to work with, with my current life schedule, work schedule and other interests. I am going to have free demos of each game, then a small price on each on: I'm thinking $1.69 for the murder mystery, maybe $3.99-$4.99 for the shooter. Somewhere in that ballpark. I think the murder mystery will be solid with that price tag and the shooter will probably be great at $3.99. The shooter will have more replay-ability, meaning I think charging it will be more reasonable.

Overall, I'm looking forward to development of these two over the next couple months.

The other thing I'm working on, is I'm re-learning some general coding skills and web development skills I've neglected over the years. I'm taking online courses with Code Academy for HTML, CSS, and the 2D game engine Phaser. These are things I've learned a bit of, but want to dive deeper into. I'm not the strongest coder, and AI has been my best friend over the last year or so to help me fix my broken scripts. I'm looking forward to these next couple months of learning, growing, developing, and having a good time!

Over the last few weeks, I've been incredibly busy. However, I have been working on hard on my projects. Firstly, I presented a game that I created with another group of students, and successfully complete my final course before graduating with my degree.

Along the lines of my personal development, I have created an entire terrain in The Mystery of Beanville, which is a part of one of the pivotal levels in the story. I've also added many more dialogues, finished up designs of the bookstore level, and the cutscene level. I haven't added the dialogues yet, or the cutscene, to each of those respective scenes. Regardless, I've done a lot of the level design so far over the last couple weeks. I want this game to be finished an released by the end of 2024.

The news for my 2D Action Platformer, it's almost done. I've scrapped the JRPG side, I've scrapped the extraction mode, and most of it. Overall, it's a functioning platformer with tons of action, guns, enemy robots, and it features a save system. The Cowsins Platformer engine had it's own checkpoint system for each level. However, I took that system a bit further and created a save system for the game, so players can hit continue game and load back into the last scene that they played. I currently have it set up with a final boss-fight level, and you can't save on that level. So, if you back out, you have to complete the level beforehand. But, once you win, it's basically just a winner screen then back to the main scene. I'm brainstorming future plans, that may include: an in-game achievement system, and an Easy and Hard mode. Hard mode would have more enemies and less heals, then Easy mode would just be the game as it is now basically. I think those two options, and the achievements would bring a player back. Reality is, I wanted to add all of those game modes to create replay ability. However, I think the easy/hard, and achievements would bring that back more.

Also going forward, even though I had planned on releasing this game on Steam, I may not. I'm planning on Itch.io for sure, however I'd love to possibly release it on Steam. My main drawback is, I don't know if I'm going to charge for this game. I'm working on two other projects right now, that could really have potential for a price tag. But I just can't justify spending the $100 to publish this when it could be played in the browser. I plan on having this game on Itch sometime in the early days of June 2024.

I've also begun working on a project that will be long-term. As in, I'm using Cowsins FPS Engine to create a FPS game that I'm hoping for a release sometime in 2025. I'm currently working on tailoring the gunplay. I want the gunplay to really draw the player into the game. After that, I want the environment to be perfect. I want to really show off my level-design and environment art skills with this project. The AI, will be done using Cowsins AI. As of now, I honestly don't need them to be that crazy of a challenge. It's a basic storyline game, where the player has to eliminate enemies as he completes various missions (finding intel, finding a hostage, etc.) and goes through a "cliche" so to speak story. I want the gameplay to be fun. I want the player to think of an old CoD Campaign or old James Bond Game when they play this. This game, will certainly be at least $2.99 on Steam. I'm hoping for something around 10 objective missions that take anywhere from 10-20 minutes to complete, and follow a basic story of a secret agent. I also maybe want to add in a wave mode for fun where the player can survive as many rounds as they can with waves of enemies. That is a function, currently being worked on in Cowsins Engine so I would love to implement that when it comes out as a side-mode for the player to have a sense of replay ability.

2024 is shaping up to be a really good year for me as a developer and I'm excited to continue forward with these projects.

A lot has changed over the last month. I've decided to scrap the 2D JRPG. I've lost the direction of the game and have lost the urge to create all of the content in it that I desired. I'm going to remake it into a 2D platformer, that is more advanced than a normal platformer. There's a few reason for this, but ultimately, I'm not prepared to create as much content for this game as I desired. So I'm going to be going back, and recreating this as a platformer with Cowsins engine from the ground up. It's going to be an advanced 2D platformer. It'll still have a JRPG vibe to it, as there will be a basic story. However, this is going to be rebuilt from the ground up as a simple platformer, no extra modes, just a fun platformer with guns. I hope to release this game later in the year. This will be a free or very very cheap game. Like I'm talking a dollar if not just free.

My energy has shifted into my new game, the Murder Mystery with some horror elements. The name of the game is "The Mysteries of Beanville." All of the characters are based off of "Mighty Beans" if you recall those in your memory. I plan on releasing this game later in the year.

The Mysteries of Beanville has gotten off to a great start, with all of the my previously mentioned features implemented. Since my last devlog, I've added more levels, set up the scenes for the basic cutscenes, and begun sculpting the terrain for the large level, where you have to find clues to who the killer is and find the missing person in the woods. I also added a big river in the level however, there's no swimming and you won't cross into the water, it's purely for decorative effect.

I'm planning on adding in a weapon, and a part where the player is attacked and has to fight the friends of the killer. This will add some FPS type of play to the game. This will most likely take place in the scene after finding the players dead friend.

Ultimately, for now, we'll be rebuilding the 2D JRPG into a more standard, Platformer game. Along with, creating and developing the Murder Mystery game. I'm planning on releasing the platformer by the end of summer, and hoping to release the murder mystery game towards the end of the fall of this year.

A lot of progress has been made on the 2D JRPG. I created an entire Mode Selection Menu screen, and added all functionality to each button. From that screen the players will be able to go back to the main menu, or select to launch any of the 3 game modes. I'd like to add in a 4th game mode, to make it worth peoples time however I just haven't pin-pointed what I want that mode to be.

I also finished up adding in dialogue to each level. All the levels now have dialogues of the character talking to himself along his journey. Basic things like "Maybe I should jump" or "I hope I get there in time" etc. This also gives the player tips as to where they are and what they need to do. The other new addition to the story is that I completed the 3rd level. The story now has 4 levels and a bossfight level. I'm considering adding in a 5th level to the game as well. I'm also debating a cutscene intro, however I am now a great animator and would need to do some research to get that up an running. My focus for this game is content. And I realized I want quality content, not filler content. I think one good story mode, with the 3 bonus modes if perfectly fine. The Extraction Mode and BossFight MiniGame are basically done. I think no further changes need to be made, and they are accessible through the mode selection menu. I'd like to spice up the UI and create the 4th game mode before launching this. The other thing I would like to add is a save feature for the story mode. All I need is a simple save feature to start the player at each level they are on in the Story. I will be implementing that before launch as well.

In regards to my newest project, I added a bunch of assets, and started designing the frameworks for some more of the areas in the game. I haven't added any new jump scares or anything yet, I'm really just focusing on the level design and environment art at the moment. I want to refine the story and really draw the player into the games story.

A fair bit has been accomplished over the last week. However, not all in my 2D JRPG. I also begun development of another game. The new game is a 3D, Comedic horror-style game. It's mostly a maze style game, with jump scares, creepy laughs, weird noises, and clowns. I will be adding a fair bit of clowns.

So far in that game, which has yet to be named, I have made one entire level. I downloaded a basic First-person controller, and some other assets to the unity store. I get scripts functioning for dialogue popups, using TextMeshPro objects. Basically just when the player is in touch with a collider, it pops up a dialogue. Usually a hint, warning, or the character thinking to themselves. I created a panel with a rough typewriter style font to really give it a good aesthetic. I also added a flashlight, using a spotlight. All I needed was a script to make the light actually turn on and off, then I attached it to the player as a child. Overall, the gameplay of this won't be super in-depth. Mostly just walking, running, jumping, using the flashlight, and maybe adding in some sort of minigames?

The first level has two jump-scares, which I also wrote a script for. Pretty easy script as well, just a collision with the player, makes an object and/or audio pop up. Overall, this game has been pretty easy to create. I'm really focusing in on the story and the level design, as those are my strengths.

In regards to the 2D JRPG. I converted the same scripts for the dialogue system from that 3D game, to 2D scripts, and added dialogues to the Story mode of the game. The other thing I did, was I finally went back and fixed the pause menu issue I was having as well. So the pause menu is up and running, along with the dialogue adding more depth to the story mode. I also worked more on the school project I'm in a group with. I made a death panel for our player, so if they die the panel will pop up. I also assisted in adding more to our dialogue system, and created some other UI and Art for the game as well. Overall, a great week on my end for development and design.

Some more changes have been made. The Katana has been removed from the story, due to some issues arising from it with the framework. So, I've replaced it with another gun that can be picked up in the first level, following the first checkpoint. Levels 2 and 3 have been reworked completely. The design of each level is less cluttered and overall simplified, but still has plenty of action and content to enjoy while progressing through the level.

I'm still working on an arena mode, and the level has been designed. Still working on getting the code to work for it though so we'll see how that works out.