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[AdamM]

Huge congrats on giving that talk!! 

Thank you! It ate into my dev time this month, but I think it was worth it.

[AdamM]

April 2024 Update

I captured this video and decided to write this update on April 6th, but now it’s nearly a week later. So this update will cover roughly the start or March to roughly the start of April.





This month was all about the game’s first boss! I had previously done some initial setup and got myself excited about the concept. I thought I had basically figured out how the fight should go, but I was a little overconfident about that. This month had some heavy iteration, a lot of self doubt, and ultimately a breakthrough. Figuring out bullet patterns has been a huge learning curve, and having a boss function the way a boss should has been hard too, but mostly it’s just a pretty heavy coding lift (and as much as I try to “do it right”, it feels like a house of cards).

My initial attempt at an attack from this boss was just to shoot aimed bullets straight at the player, quickly. The issue there is they were quite easy to dodge. Then I tried more slowly, more random, bigger, smaller… and eventually realized the answer to all of these was “yes”, but with heavy tweaking and iteration.

I also did some work to better integrate the electrical hazards into the fight, and had an “ah-ha!” moment when I decided to make them electrify (and enlarge) the boss’s bullets.

I had another pattern in mind for this boss as well and did some initial work to implement it, but for now that particular pattern feels like a “maybe later, if necessary” addition. For now I’m more focused on what the bosses do when their turrets are destroyed, and I have some ideas that I think will be fun to explore.

I’m starting to become aware that working on a boss for 3 months is a lot when the game has lots of other areas that need work, and other new features to add. But I’m finding the process to be quite instructive, teaching me lessons I’m sure I’ll be bringing across to the rest of the game. I also know doing something for the first time is obviously going to take longer, and I’ll be happy to have gained the experience of making a boss fight.

[AdamM]

More boss fight progress! I think I'm ready to set this aside for a little while and focus on other things.

[AdamM]

Huge congrats on giving that talk!!  

It was just posted yesterday.





I think this counts as part of my dev log because I’m talking about my process for developing this game.

[AdamM]

Name of the Game

I have been considering changing the name of this game, and gone down deep rabbit holes trying to figure out alternate titles that are some kind of clever play on the themes of the game while also capturing the spirit of the gameplay, while also being unique enough, but not SO unique that people don’t know how to say it or spell it.

My problems with “Chrono Blazer” are:
1. “Chrono” is a hallowed word in the world of video games, and actually isn’t even a word in English. So it was essentially created by the Chrono series (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross) and it almost feels dirty to use it.
2. “Blazer” in this context is kind of odd, since it’s essentially short for “trailblazer” but “blazer” on its own is a type of jacket, or a Chevy, or a nickname for a basketball team.
3. I was saying “craw-no”, like chronological. But a lot of other people say “crow-no”, and they’re probably right.
4. CRAW-no (space) BLAY-zer feels a bit awkward to say.
5. The whole name has kind of an “adventure through time!” vibe when it’s really more like “stuck in a time loop trying to push forward”.

So I went deep on other names, trying out different ideas. Asking friends what they think, mocking up logos, letting the ideas marinate.

And ultimately, I think I’ve landed on… Chronoblazer.

Here’s how it solves my problems:
1. “Chrono” as a prefix is actually incredibly common and feels appropriate here.
2. “Blazer” is now not its own word, but is borrowed from trailblazer to represent that we are blazing through time the way you might blaze through a trail.
3. I have accepted that most words beginning with “chrono” are pronounced like “crow-no” and have embraced it.
4. “CROW-no-blay-zer” (with no space to pause at) flows nicer and has the same number of syllables as trailblazer.
5. Somehow, one long word instead of two medium words sounds more sci-fi and less zany time adventure or fantasy sword fighting.

I always liked that the name was unique, fairly easy to understand, conveys what the game is about, has a somewhat “radical” sound to it (Z or X somewhere in the name is basically a must), and looks good on paper.

My only issue now is creating a legible logo/title screen for a 12 letter word.

[AdamM]

May 2024 Update - Boss fight, map and more

April ended up being a productive month! The game dev gods were on my side an things mostly went my way, not getting caught up on problems for very long and mostly just moving forward. Or maybe that's experience coming into play, I dunno.

I expected to spend the whole month of April wrapping up the game's first boss fight, but about halfway through the month I was ready to set it aside and move on. I feel pretty good about it and am interested to see how it plays for fresh eyes before jumping in and making tweaks or overhauls to it. (See above for the latest progress)

I then decided to start tackling a map, which for all I knew would have taken a whole month as well. But I had a basic version working after a few hours of work, and while it's still not done I was able to make some further refinements and it's very close to being fully functional (though very much not polished).

A little bit on the technical implementation of the map in Game Maker:

- There are "Map Zones" placed manually in the rooms.
- The zones check for collision and record the coordinates of the collision into a DS Grid (Game Maker's speedier version of a 2D array). The grid is 32x32.
In the Cockpit room, I use the coordinates to draw the grid coordinates onto a tilemap. Each coordinate on the grid is 1 pixel, so the 32x32 grid is 32 pixels.
- I have the map off to the side from the main cockpit screen, but use a viewport to draw it in the middle of the screen and scale it up (the viewport is scaled).
- The background of the cockpit room is a grid, so blank spots on the map appear as an empty grid.
- For now, I'm manually placing points of interest onto the map somewhat blindly and testing. I may make this part of the Map Zone process as well in the future, automatically detecting things.





Aside from visual polish, I still need to add functionality to the map to allow the player to pan around the map and for the cursor to jump to different spawn points when selecting them in the menu. I don't currently plan to have a mini map during gameplay, as I don't want this to be a game where someone is constantly looking at a map when they play. It's more about plotting your route and then executing during gameplay. Though, like all things, this is subject to change as the game's design evolves and I get feedback from playtests.

I also made some tweaks to visuals, adding contrast to the interactive elements and removing contrast from backgrounds, and added some effects when the player encounters an “anomaly” (time freezing, XP granting object that never respawns). The background gets a flashing overlay and the foreground gets its contrast bumped up subtly.