Context & Research
Below is the initial mind-map I did regarding this final unit 13 project. As you can see in the image I discuss all my ideas and the pros and cons of each. For example, you can see that another one of my ideas was 3d modelling some game assets from either popular games. One reason I wanted to do something like that was because I wanted to get better in different software to expand my skillset, the software I would have used for the 3d modelling would have been blender, as i feel this is the best for someone like me to use even though it may not be as big as other software like 3ds max. Finally, as you can see from the mind-map the ideas I had for a 2d game hugely outweigh the ideas I had for 3d modelling as I had previously given it a lot of thought.
Inspiration
When thinking about what I wanted to do about this project I looked into many kinds of game genres/art styles seeing which I think I will be able to make a good project within the time given as well as one I would enjoy making. Looking at the time given I chose to do a game similar to Zelda, old Mario games and old Pokemon games. To get some potential ideas i played these games for a few outs just looking at how certain things are animated and how character movement works etc etc to get some advice/ideas on how to do/not do it in my game.
Art Style
This page of the website will be used in order for me to share the research I have done throughout the development of my final project. The first thing to look into would be the kind of art style aswell as the camera view I wish to do for my game. My initial idea would be a similar style to Stardew Valley.
Above are a few images of how I planned for the game to look in its final stages. However upon looking further into it i chose to do a side on 2d platformer as i think it will be easier to learn pixel art in the 2d form instead of having to try pixel art things that look 3d. So at this point in the development stage I was mainly looking into the basics of game maker studio 2 and the things I should no so I am not going in blind and confused.
I thought the best way to get into this new engine would be to find a youtube video on some of just the basics of the engine so i know how some of the stuff works and i'm not confused as to how to make a basic sprite.
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The video i used to start myself off in the world of game maker was the one linked below. This youtuber is very useful for things all based around games development in game maker studio. I saw he has a playlist all based around making 2d platformer games which i may end up needing to watch a few videos of it to help me along the way.
Gantt Chart
Below is an image of my created gantt chart. The reason we made one of these is because it is an easy and effective way or pre-planning our work before we get started working on it. This is to help us keep track of when we are doing things in order to not get overwhelmed with too much work at once and then getting bogged down in certain things and falling behind on other parts of the project.
Other NEW Ideas
For my project I plan on remastering another game I worked on as part of a group in college which was a short 2 level game called "The Key Master's Realm" it was essentially a puzzle escape game where you are trapped in the Key Masters "Realm" which in other words was your own dream, and in order to escape you have to find the key as well as the hatch and leave to move on to a new level.
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So of course because if I am remastering an old game I have to got to add more features than the original game. One of the examples I had was to add a powerup shop, which will essentially be a way for the character/player to buff themselves and grant themselves new ways to complete levels, for example double jumps to make higher/further jumps or unlocking a speed boost/sprint mechanic. This feature will of course come with a collectibles/currency system with coins in each level that the player can pickup similar to the Mario coins as well as a shop widget/GUI that the player can open to then spend the coins they picked up in levels to make the rest of the game possible or easier.
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Another thing I would love to add into this version of the game would be spike traps or arrow traps in the later levels. We had this planned for the other version of the game we made as a group however we never got around to it because we didn't have the greatest time management and I was able to get around to programming it before the final session. However, with this just being me working on the game I would love to add it as I don't THINK it should be too big of a task for me to do it but it will definitely be something I do nearer the end of production.
Character Ideas
With this being a 2D game there is quite a few ideas for the sprite design, for example what kind of bit I will make the sprite, so like 16bit, 32bit or even 48bit another thing would be the kind of style it is in full body, or small (similar to the old Pokemon games. Below is a mood board of the sorts of style I might try to do, i am personally liking the one of the very right.
Why did I choose this?
The reasoning behind choosing this ideas was because I enjoyed working in unreal engine as part of unit 10 and the group game project and thought since I clearly enjoy the development part of games development why not give it another go and test my skills in another engine. So after a little thought about which kind of style I want the game to be as well as what dimension I want it (2D Side View, 3d, 2D Top Down etc.) and I chose initially to do a 3d style of game which i quickly chose not to do because I thought with the time limit I have set it would be easier to do a 2D Side View similar to that of the older Mario games.
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Another reason is because at home I have been trying my hand at different coding techniques learning different languages and creating different things. For example I coded a simple moderation discord bot in python as well as coding a basic(ish) website using C++ and html as those are some of the main languages used in web development, html for the actual physical website and then C++ to make things look good. Due to doing this at home I wanted to try another language and I thought what better than to try another simple language known as GML or Game Maker Language.
Power-UP Research
For my game I wanted to include player powerups like speed boosts and double jumping, which with my limited knowledge of this games engine took a little bit of time to get it working how I wanted it to work. However, after googling it a little bit and looking at past code and expressions I was yet to use, I was able to get it done.
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A link to the youtube video I watched to help me with the speed boost is below, the double jump I was able to do myself with a little bit of work
Gameplay Transition
Similar to the last piece of research I did, this part of the game was going to take longer than other things and be a lot harder. The reason this would be harder is because of the amount of new expressions were used within the creation of the transitions I created.
When creating the transitions I needed to implement scripting into it to make it run how I wanted it to, as well as use a new function called emuns which are basically global, constant variables. Basically variables that can be used in any object in the file, as well as them being a contants value meaning they don't change.
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Link to the video i used below again. Thanks to Shaun Spalding.