jan

I just realized that I haven't actually posted a link to the game in this thread, so here it is: https://janschaser.itch.io/do-you-believe-in-dot-gobbler Thanks everyone who played it and said nice things about it! Wizard Jam was a blast. My first Wizard Jam got me to release a video game thing I worked on for the first time, and this one got me back into doing game dev after a bit of a slump, so while I sat out most of the jams, I'm glad I got to be a part of the last one. Still, I hope it makes an unexpected comeback one day.

So, I ended up neglecting this Dev Log for most of the jam. I realized that my idea for the game was simultaneously overambitious and not fleshed out enough which made me kind of anxious about not being able to finish the project in time (which I didn't, haha) and I sort of abandoned it for a while. But, this is the last Wizard Jam and I regret not having participated in more of them, so I'm not giving up this time. I'm taking advantage of the flexibility of the jam and trying to get something playable made in time for showcase weekend. This is my very hacky setup for the end of the game, I'm using Unity's built-in Character Controller, which is locked to always facing up on the global Y-axis, so I had to make the earth rotate underneath it (the texture is just a placeholder): Here is a selection of small to medium sized gobblable props: Thanks for the design advice! This is honestly the part of this that I'm struggling with the most, I'm a lot better at making pretty walking simulators than designing actually fun mechanics. Your suggestion definitely helps. Thanks, I'm glad you approve of my Dot Gobbler-shenanigans. Ha, thanks! The Butt Shadows™ (now sadly covered by Dot Gobbler's cape) are actually just Unity's post-process ambient occlusion. I'm using an (almost) unlit shader with a hint of PBR mixed in and the AO to give everything a bit more definition. Initially, I used texture sheets with squares of different colors to unwrap the meshes onto but I found a workflow using vertex colors that turned out to be quicker. I decided to keep the visuals as simple as possible to make it easier to model a lot of gobblable items in a short time.

Wow, that looks awesome already! I don’t know if it would fit the style of the game but maybe you could project some kind of real/fake shadow onto objects that are underneath the player to help communicate how close they are.

I've never played Warning Forever but 'proc-gen articulated robot ships' sounds like a pretty wild idea, I'm excited to see where this goes. Also, I like the tube. I think it's always super impressive when people do 3D stuff in 2D engines.

Progress! It's still pretty rough at this stage, but I managed to set up some basic third person walking and gobbling. Since the game is in third person you can't really see Dot Gobbler's face most of the time so I decided to render a second perspective to a Render Texture in the bottom left corner. The bottom right shows the last object you picked up. Also I haven't yet decided whether I want him to get bigger every time he gobbles something or if it would be better to make him grow in stages. But the idea is that getting bigger allows you to pick up bigger objects. The tree is obviously a bit too big at this stage, my next step is to make more props and plan out an actual level.

The DOS/Shareware aesthetic in this is excellent, I'm excited to play it!

EDIT: It's done! (Well, playable): https://janschaser.itch.io/do-you-believe-in-dot-gobbler -------------------------------------------------------------- Since it's the final Wizard Jam, this is the last chance I get to finally work on an idea I initially wanted to do many jams ago. I'm making a Katamari Damacy-inspired Dot Gobbler game in which, instead of rolling giant ball, you are Dot Gobbler and instead of dots you must gobble EVERYTHING. As you gobble up the things around you, you get bigger which allows you to gobble bigger things. Also, in this game Dot Gobbler is some kind of alien/superhero I guess? I really just liked the image of Dot Gobbler wearing a cape if I’m being honest. (@Synnah I hope you don't mind me stealing the 'Do You Believe' name from your game.)

[edited]

Thanks everyone! Here is a the first cool bot: It took me a bit longer than expected, modeling round things is hard... I also tried making a little walk cycle. It didn't turn out too well but in a way that makes it look more robotic: The next step is to give them the ability to display different facial expressions (and possibly other stuff).

Update: This project is abandoned for now, I keep having to do more important things this week, I probably won't be able to finish anything this time around. ----------------------------- Hey wizard jams! After throwing out several hopelessly overambitious ideas I've decided to make another surreal walking-simulator/vignette thing. (I made Zombie Train last jam, the 3D one.) The title is derived from the episode "Cool Blob Future" and the recurring robot-news discussions of the podcast. I've been exploring this idea of robots with a big screen for a face that I can display things on: Diversifiers: Wizard Jam Shared Cinematic Universe Building A Legacy (There will be Dot Gobbler) Box art Nice Segue

Yeah, in retrospect I like your version better. It looks more unsettling (in a good way). I'll second that.

I like the look of that bug. Not sure if this helps but I'm teaching myself to paint (digitally) and one thing I learned is that it's important to use a wide range of values, even in dark scenes. In your image the darkest and the lightest bits are pretty close together which could make it feel a bit dull. I did a quick edit, I'm not sure that it turned out that great but hopefully it illustrates what I mean.

This sounds cool. It will help me procrastinate when I'm supposed to be working on my own game. (Sign me up)

Far Cry 2 speedruns could turn out to be amazing.

Thanks! That's a really nice compliment . Thank you. Yeah, the dining car was my initial idea and probably the strongest part, the rest of the game is sort of built around that. I guess for a jam game it's actually not that short, I think I just felt it was because I wanted to put in some more carriages and maybe make the zombies show up again at the end. But now that the jam is over I somehow can't bring myself to continue working on it. I posted this in the Slack already but I'm of proud of how it turned out so I'm putting it here as well. I played around with Inkscape the other day and made a poster (inspired by/a rip-off of an old advert for the Orient Express):