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[M0ti]

My original intention for the dungeon prototype was to focus on the exploration. Player will explore the dungeon, trying to gain as much income as possible. But after a while it was clear to me that that is not be enough. Collecting plain numbers without any attachment to it just wasn’t fun.

And that’s why I made the inventory system!
First, I’m planning to have things like healing and saving the game limited. And I’m thinking of doing so by consumable items.
Second, even though the goal of the game is still about collecting enough “coins”, now the numbers got meaning, as they are attached to items.
Third, this unintentionaly creates another layer of decisions where the player has to manenge the inventory.

The first thing I did was drawing. Oh man, everything went so smoothly back then. In one hour I had everything. Different rings, potions and also meaningless items like moldy bread. Searching for bugs with which I spent the rest of the day, was not. But I managed somehow and the whole system is really simple.
In the obj_game (the ruler of my game) is created ds_map (dictionary) called global.item_list which holds pairs of item names and values.
 “MOLDY BREAD” : 0
“SHINY GEM” : 100

Then I have a script called draw_item() which can pick you the right image based on the items name.

And that’s it. The only thing, that is passing between objects (for example from the treasure chest to the players inventory) is the name of the item. If there is a need for additional informations (value or sprite) the relevant object just has to ask for them somewhere else.

[M0ti]

How I made the text box. Probably similarly like anyone else ...

Because I don't use the mouse I had no use for specific objects, like inventory buttons, which will had to detect collision with the mouse. Thanks to that the whole inventory and text box are almost completely programmed under the Draw GUI event.

With the step 2 I could insted of repeating go with just one sprite stretched by xscale but didn’t feel like it. :D

[flex$]

hey bud, just dropping by to say that i've been following your progress and you're doing good dude, keep it up, i like how you haven't skimped on any of the systems, keep adding little by little

[M0ti]

hey bud, just dropping by to say that i've been following your progress and you're doing good dude, keep it up, i like how you haven't skimped on any of the systems, keep adding little by little

Hey flex$, thank you very much. You wrote in the absolute best time possible. As if you knew. For the last few weeks I was not sure, what to do. I was not sure if anyone is reading this, and if it is any way valuable or interesting for them.
After all I was the only one posting here for more than a month.
If you follow this project, I could ask you, is there anything that you would like to know more about? Would you appreciate if I get deeper in some topics or are there things that I'm not covering but you would be interested in?

[ByerN]

Getting no feedback can be depressing By myself I know that, I am working on my own game, almost daily recording progress and job/live so I can spend limited time amount on watching others progress and commenting it somehow.

For me this game is cute :D I like how you add little things to make game more interesting. It's great to see passion

What I would like to see is for example some video with gameplay from time to time. As I've mentioned with this lack of time, best for me would be just looking at one short video with work "snapshot" at last page so I can just check how it looks like and comment. Digging through a lot of text on many pages is hard if you want to see more than one project on the forum (that's why I've found twitter great for checking others progress)

Good luck, you are doing good job

PS. I know that I am recording too long videos sometimes for my game so it's hard to check it out, so I am trying to create some short versions as gifs or shorter videos. Time is so costly these days. I don't want anyone to pay too much for checking my work, but sometimes its hard to put everything that you want to say in a short one xD

[flex$]

hey bud, just dropping by to say that i've been following your progress and you're doing good dude, keep it up, i like how you haven't skimped on any of the systems, keep adding little by little

Hey flex$, thank you very much. You wrote in the absolute best time possible. As if you knew. For the last few weeks I was not sure, what to do. I was not sure if anyone is reading this, and if it is any way valuable or interesting for them.
After all I was the only one posting here for more than a month.
If you follow this project, I could ask you, is there anything that you would like to know more about? Would you appreciate if I get deeper in some topics or are there things that I'm not covering but you would be interested in?

personally i like reading about your design and coding process, even with simple stuff, it's been fun reading how you've built on top of the foundation you've created. i know how discouraging it can be when nobody responds, but i'm cheering you on dude.

[M0ti]

Getting no feedback can be depressing By myself I know that, I am working on my own game, almost daily recording progress and job/live so I can spend limited time amount on watching others progress and commenting it somehow.

For me this game is cute :D I like how you add little things to make game more interesting. It's great to see passion

What I would like to see is for example some video with gameplay from time to time. As I've mentioned with this lack of time, best for me would be just looking at one short video with work "snapshot" at last page so I can just check how it looks like and comment. Digging through a lot of text on many pages is hard if you want to see more than one project on the forum (that's why I've found twitter great for checking others progress)

Good luck, you are doing good job

PS. I know that I am recording too long videos sometimes for my game so it's hard to check it out, so I am trying to create some short versions as gifs or shorter videos. Time is so costly these days. I don't want anyone to pay too much for checking my work, but sometimes its hard to put everything that you want to say in a short one xD

Thank you, ByerN, for your feedback. A week ago I’ve found out that my laptop can’t handle recording video of my game, so that would be impossible.  He is too old and running the game and recording it at the same time is killing him. :D But I like making gifs!
And if you want more instant and visual oriented news from my development, I’m using twitter for that, so you can also follow me here @pwMoti if you want to.

[M0ti]

hey bud, just dropping by to say that i've been following your progress and you're doing good dude, keep it up, i like how you haven't skimped on any of the systems, keep adding little by little

Hey flex$, thank you very much. You wrote in the absolute best time possible. As if you knew. For the last few weeks I was not sure, what to do. I was not sure if anyone is reading this, and if it is any way valuable or interesting for them.
After all I was the only one posting here for more than a month.
If you follow this project, I could ask you, is there anything that you would like to know more about? Would you appreciate if I get deeper in some topics or are there things that I'm not covering but you would be interested in?

personally i like reading about your design and coding process, even with simple stuff, it's been fun reading how you've built on top of the foundation you've created. i know how discouraging it can be when nobody responds, but i'm cheering you on dude.

Thank you flex$! Yeah, not getting any feedback for some time is really frustrating. I'm blessed that at least for now I've got no harsh or negative one, so maybe that's why I feel so vulnerable from the silence itself. :D

[M0ti]

Falling

Few weeks back I participated in the indie showcase which was part of the Game Access 18.
It was amazing and I made a lot of good memories there.

But next to the positive feedback I also got a ton of constructive feedback. With some I know what to do, with some other I will have to experiment a little bit before I find the proper solution. Constant falling into the holes is going to be one of them.

I thought that how the collision check works right now is perfectly reasonable. Right between the foots of the character is center of gravity. That’s the only point the game is checking.
If you move with the center of gravity above the hole, you will fall, just like you will fall in the real world! What’s so hard to understand about it?!?! Well, not sure yet, but something is clearly wrong. Because no matter how experienced person was playing it, he/she will fall many many times. :D
Thankfully, because almost all the people at the event were game developers, I could discuss it many times and track down few possible causes and solutions.

First possibility is, that the main mass of the character is in the torso and the head and there is a chance that the player is using this mass to optically navigate through the space, instead of the legs. →  For that I already added the shadow under him.
Second suggestion is that when the hole is under the character, the border is not  visible enough, because the colours are too close to each other.
But because I already tested the shadow solution, I know that tweaking the visual aspect will not be enough. Another solutions are:

Checking multiple points: instead of just checking the center of gravity, I will for example check for two points on the left and right from it. The falling will start only if all the points are above the hole.
The problem that will occur due to this solution will be a need to change a lot of places in the level, because now the player will be able to walk through them.

Rounded corners: The collision mask of the hole will get rounded corners.
With this solution will came even more problems. If I not add some code so that the hole can decide which corner is round and which not, the problem above will be once again a threath.
And most importantly, I will have to switch to the precise collision checking for a lot of instances, which will greatly affect the performance.

Invisible assistance: This will helpfule for sure but it will be the most difficult to do it right. Because the movement is on the analogue stick, the movement in the grid world is imperfect. To help the player with things like: slowing him down, if he is too close to the hole; helping the player to move in the straight lines when the player desires soo.
Thiw will be usefull, but because these things needs to be unnotaceable, it will also requeire a lot of work and testing.

[M0ti]

So, what kind of progress did I made? How much closer did I get to my dream in the last few months? To tell you the truth, I didn’t move even an inch further.
There is something about the summer, that prevents me to make any progress. This year I thought I could fight it, just as I do every year, but I failed … again.
I thought it’s because of the heat, against which I have zero resistance, but it has to be something bigger. Even when there is a storm outside or when is early in the morning, I can’t push myself to do the work that I’ve planned.
In situation like this I always think: ”What will be the more suitable progress in my personal skill tree?”

• Being able to force myself to work even in the summer.
• Being able to accept that I naturally can’t and be ok with it.

It seems that at least this year I will go with the later option. But, even though I can’t advance I’ve found an exception that I can still do. And that is learning! It seems that I can’t make new stuff, but I can learn new stuff! So I decided to fully exploit this loophole in my natural behaviour.

I’ve started to make prototypes just for fun. Like here, where I try to make match-3.

I also started a tutorial course on Udemy “Make a Turn-Based RPG in GameMaker Studio 1.4” after which I will move to second one “Make an Action RPG in GameMaker Studio 2”
Next I've started teaching my friend how to make games in the GMS which is also amazing experience.
I also do non-gamedev learning like:
I started to play basketball with friends; I read … books; and after an exercise I ca hold my breath for 3 min. 45 sec.; and I'm in process of writing a short story, which is something I've not done in years.

What I would like to do before the end of the summer is:

Get back to drawing which will include: colors, pixelart, animations
Learn in game maker about:

• the A.I.
• Path-finding
• Delta time

BitBucket and the Git

If you have any tips or know about good tutorials on these topics, please share!

[PetSkull]

There is something about the summer, that prevents me to make any progress. This year I thought I could fight it, just as I do every year, but I failed … again.

I hear you! - I'm in the same situation. Been away from my game for almost a month now. Normally it's not so hot in Denmark, but this summer, we've had 56 days without rain and temperatures above 28-33 degreees (c), so I can't focus on getting behind the keyboard, because it's too hot and humid. Everything sticks to my arms, when they rest on the table 

[M0ti]

There is something about the summer, that prevents me to make any progress. This year I thought I could fight it, just as I do every year, but I failed … again.

I hear you! - I'm in the same situation. Been away from my game for almost a month now. Normally it's not so hot in Denmark, but this summer, we've had 56 days without rain and temperatures above 28-33 degreees (c), so I can't focus on getting behind the keyboard, because it's too hot and humid. Everything sticks to my arms, when they rest on the table 

That sounds awful. I hope that it is better by now. Especially because here it's not and it seems that we can't anticipate an improvement at least one more week.  

[M0ti]

So I wanted to get into the enemy AI, but I was instantly overwhelmed by all these steps that I had to learn beforehand. Before I could start making my finite state machine, I had to learn all about motion planning, before which I should already know everything about path functions etc.
So to avoid the nearing depression I've started making two unrelated prototypes simultaneously.

The first one that I would like to present here I call the “Meditation” prototype. I’ve got this concept after reading too many action manhwa. Which has one special attribute compared to the typical manga or western comics. To get stronger you had to meditate. Does not matter if you are at the starting point or old advanced matcho master, you had to meditate to become stronger. In some sense fighting experience is not needed. It’s only a time when you confirm the results of your meditation. And I thought ... can I make a game from that?



So I’ve started really simple, with breathing. Right now I can compose a breathing sequence from different elements that represents inhale and exhale in short or long variant.
All the code is inside the individual pieces. The object where the sequence is placed only holds a ds_list with id’s.
The last addition to the prototype was a possibility to add a piece elsewhere than at the end of the sequence.

Btw, is it weird to write about these prototypes here? They are unrelated to the Epocha Tower, but at the same time I do them to get better so that I can handle the main project better.

[M0ti]

Aaaaand I’m done with the “Meditation” prototype. Or to be more specific I’ve finished breathing and decided to not continue with it.

What I implemented is:

• Adding elements into the sequence by just clicking on them. (The object switch into the drag mode after the mouse leaves its collision mask)
• To inhale and exhale elements I’ve also added holding breath.
• I’ve made the lungs represented by few circles. The capacity is in range 0 - 3. You can hold your breath without limit, but you can’t inhale or exhale outside of this range.
• Which of course means that now the breathing pattern can be played. While it plays, everything is locked to prevent errors.

What would the next step be like?
Well, the next step would be to get the breathing some meaning. It would mean adding the body object, on which we could see the impact of different breathing patterns.
In the fully developed system I can imagine having three pattern lines, between which you can switch. Also a system of affirmations or pictures, that the character can visualize, while breathing. Also an opportunity to focus on specific parts of the body will be nice.
But with this, I would have to get deeper in the game design, which will turn it from exercise into another project, which is something I don’t plan to do right now.

[M0ti]

Last week was my last at my daily job. Full of sentiment and warm feelings I said goodbye to my colleagues, my working place, customers. Now as a full time game developer, or as could someone said unemployed dreamer, I’m going to fully focus on Epocha Tower for at least few months.
I wanted to begin this new etape of my life with a bang and decided to do so by participating in GMTKjam.
The theme was an “Genre without mechanic” which we decided to address by making “Survival game without your survival”
You and your daughter are in an abandoned cabin. Your wounds tells you, that you will not see the end of this journey.
Teach and secure your child enough for her to survive, when you are no longer there.

LINK HERE 

The Jam is over, and voting is currently taking place. If anyone finds this concept interesting or would like to celebrate the start of my life as a game developer, please enjoy our game and leave a rating.
This will also be my last non-Epocha Tower post for a while. The summer is over, prototyping time as well. It’s time to get back to work. 

[haks109]

Congrats man! Wish I could leave my daily job to focus on my game. Just saw this game and I've been following the progress you made for The Epucha Tower and I'm intrigued with what would this game become!

Heat... heck man I live in Panama and well... I don't see too many game devs around here either, maybe that's the reason :D I agree hot weather can be detrimental to motivation for game devs, or even any dev or whatever guy that works with a computer for hours, and even myself.. I try not to abandon my game, however I made almost no progress for more than 2 months... its not easy, but in my personal case I cannot blame it to the weather I certainly would like to know how is to work in a cold weather, some folks around say its a lot better.

A little suggestion: unless you plan to include the prototypes as mechanics inside Epocha Tower, I would like to suggest to open a devlog post per game, maybe people in this post expect to see updates regarding the game or project this post was opened for (maybe, I could be wrong, I'm not an expert on how the TIGforums community work)

[M0ti]

Congrats man! Wish I could leave my daily job to focus on my game. Just saw this game and I've been following the progress you made for The Epucha Tower and I'm intrigued with what would this game become!

Heat... heck man I live in Panama and well... I don't see too many game devs around here either, maybe that's the reason :D I agree hot weather can be detrimental to motivation for game devs, or even any dev or whatever guy that works with a computer for hours, and even myself.. I try not to abandon my game, however I made almost no progress for more than 2 months... its not easy, but in my personal case I cannot blame it to the weather I certainly would like to know how is to work in a cold weather, some folks around say its a lot better.

A little suggestion: unless you plan to include the prototypes as mechanics inside Epocha Tower, I would like to suggest to open a devlog post per game, maybe people in this post expect to see updates regarding the game or project this post was opened for (maybe, I could be wrong, I'm not an expert on how the TIGforums community work)

Yeah, I thought about it too this weekend, that it will be better to be more theme focused, when it comes to the forum thread. There is still chance that I will do some isolated prototypes, but I will describe them only if there are related to the main project. Thank you for the concern.
About the weather it’s always better when it’s colder, but I don't think that it’s absolute. I think it's probably not as severe in places where is not such a difference between the four seasons. But that's only a guess.
I personaly am a real mess, once the tempeture rise above 30°C :D

[haks109]

Congrats man! Wish I could leave my daily job to focus on my game. Just saw this game and I've been following the progress you made for The Epucha Tower and I'm intrigued with what would this game become!

Heat... heck man I live in Panama and well... I don't see too many game devs around here either, maybe that's the reason :D I agree hot weather can be detrimental to motivation for game devs, or even any dev or whatever guy that works with a computer for hours, and even myself.. I try not to abandon my game, however I made almost no progress for more than 2 months... its not easy, but in my personal case I cannot blame it to the weather I certainly would like to know how is to work in a cold weather, some folks around say its a lot better.

A little suggestion: unless you plan to include the prototypes as mechanics inside Epocha Tower, I would like to suggest to open a devlog post per game, maybe people in this post expect to see updates regarding the game or project this post was opened for (maybe, I could be wrong, I'm not an expert on how the TIGforums community work)

Yeah, I thought about it too this weekend, that it will be better to be more theme focused, when it comes to the forum thread. There is still chance that I will do some isolated prototypes, but I will describe them only if there are related to the main project. Thank you for the concern.
About the weather it’s always better when it’s colder, but I don't think that it’s absolute. I think it's probably not as severe in places where is not such a difference between the four seasons. But that's only a guess.
I personaly am a real mess, once the tempeture rise above 30°C :D

Would be interesting to see these prototypes as mechanics that improve Epocha Tower experience, maybe like puzzles or challenges to unlock some treasures or new levels

Here in Panama it's always is over 26, sometimes it reaches 35, this is the whole year, even when it rains... so you could imagine, usually offices and some houses have air conditioning

[Alce]

Congrats on making the jump to full-time! Best of luck, let's hope some great progress happens in these next few months :D

[M0ti]

Congrats on making the jump to full-time! Best of luck, let's hope some great progress happens in these next few months :D

Thank you! It's nothing fancy, really. I just quit my daily job and now I have a few months when I can do whatever I want before I need to find another job. :D
So it's exactly as you said. Lets see, what I can make in the few months I have. :D