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Dewar

[Devlog] Grid

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I've decided to take the first couple weeks after my layoff to finally build and complete a Unity game. I've started and stopped on several big projects, so this time I'm going to make a small grid puzzle game that should be pretty easily manageable in a couple of weeks, but be polished enough . After two days, this is what I have.

 

A very basic menu with yellow highlighting on the arrows and start button:

Se406fK.png

 

Most of those switches don't do a lot, except size, which dynamically adjusts the board:

SByKm0A.png

 

The buttons now properly trigger each other for boards of any size. Next steps are to generate the actual puzzle, create win conditions, then start hooking up those other menu options.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sounds like a good way to make something good out of a bad situation! 

 

What type of puzzles are these? Like Soukoban?

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It's a Light's Out puzzle.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_Out_(game)

 

Though I have some ideas to make it a little bit more interesting than that.

 

Edit: This is the first time I've actually made multiple scenes and handed off between them. Trying to pass just a few variables (the selections on that menu up there) is a lot bigger pain that it should be. Having to make an object with DontDestroyOnLoad() in it when I just want to pass four numbers seems dumb.

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Today I added puzzle generation (basically an ability to click buttons in reverse,) a win screen, and then back to menu and exit buttons on all screens, so I guess it's an actual game now?

 

vOdzw87.png

 

Fx2mR0u.png

 

I was going to stop there, but i came across a couple of bugs (a board could start already completed, and going back to the menu wouldn't send the options to create the next board if nothing was changed.) In fixing those, I genericized a few bits of code and ended up getting the next thing I wanted to coded as well, buttons that have multiple states instead of just on and off. It feels good to get that "one more thing" feeling about something productive, instead of just Civ or Minecraft.

 

RupNYUY.png 

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Looks good! Glad you got it up and running and debugged.

 

Are you using all UI elements to create the game board?

 

What is next?

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i started up the project as a 2D project, so just using sprites for the most part. I scale them down a bit when you click them to make them look like they're being pushed in. I might, if I'm unemployed long enough, try and make the keypad a 3D object, but not ready yet.

 

Today I'm hooking up the rest of the switches on the main menu (which will require some GIMP skills) as well as adding a "restart the same puzzle" button on the bottom. I'd also like to create a code that you could send to someone so they could try the same puzzle. At first I was thinking a random seed with a few extra digits tacked on the end to send across the menu settings, but I'm not sure how reliable that would be. Then I was thinking just coding the board layout into hex, but with a max of 49 buttons in 4 possible states, plus modifiers, that gets to be a pretty unwieldy code. 

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Ran into some major bugs for the first time today, so I didn't quite get as much done as I'd hoped. At least I got the restart button working, and the other two mutators listed on the menu screen working

 

mmAYVnu.png

 

The buttons with cracks don't do anything when clicked directly, but can still change color when buttons next to them are pressed. The ones with the yellow sparks (programming art) change color any time another button is pressed anywhere on the board. If the short circuited button is clicked directly, it changes twice.

 

I went back and forth on whether I wanted the cracks as an overlayed second sprite, or just a new sprite with the crack drawn on it. I ended up going with a new sprite, but then I realized that the yellow sparks are going to look really strange when turned green or red, so I've got to go back and make it two sprites so I can independently change the color of the button without changing the sparks/cracks. 

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Took a break on Friday and am only doing a half day today so I can finish my taxes, but I did manage to get a little done. First off, now that most of the functions are actually functional, I brainstormed a list of polish items I'd like to get done before I call it finished,

 


Background
Drop shadows on arrows
Animation on menu items
Layer broken and short circuit sprites
Redo button art
Redo keypad surface art
Load froms seed
Better font
Back to menu saves settings

 

Then I managed to do two of those things! I grabbed a free font from Google at https://fonts.google.com/ and quickly tossed it in on all the menu items. That was easy enough, but getting the menu animations to work was a little tougher.

 

1vTMfc2.png

 

Basically, I've taken the background and put the center potion of it behind my text entries, and the left and right portions in front of my text entries but behind the arrows. When I click left, the text scrolls off the screen to the left and the new text scrolls in from behind the right background bit. It's a bit sloppy, with a bunch of random Vector3's in there of non-obvious sizes, but it works.

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I like that new font. I'm also surprised I've never used that google fonts before. I always end up at dafont or some place when I'm digging around.

 

Taxes are keeping me from my own project as well. Boo.

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Yesterday I got the help formatted. The help button simply slides the camera to the side and adds this extra text on the side. The best thing about doing this is the main menu still functions, so you can change the options while looking at the help text, or clear the text by clicking help again, whichever floats your boat.

 

yrTLdTh.png

 

Today I'm going to try some foley work, to make button noises, because that sounds a lot more fun then trying to find a find a canned effect somewhere on the internet. Then I'm going to use medium to see if I can create a cool background, either as a picture of a sculpture, or a literal 3D object behind the 2D playing field.

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Hey, I've been meaning to comment on this as I've been following along. I was wondering how you're making sure that each puzzle has a complete solution, especially with the broken/shorted keys? Or is it intrinsic to this particular puzzle type that there's always a solution, it's just how long it takes you?

 

Anyway, looking good, and your productivity kicks my butt!

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When I load the puzzle I'm actually switching the buttons into reverse and the computer is pressing a bunch of random buttons, more if the difficulty is higher. This ensures that whenever I add a feature, the puzzle is consistently solvable as long as I add a reverse step.

 

As for today's progress, not much of a picture to show today. I got my sound design done, but also had a hard time concentrating so I ended up reading some unemployment documentation. I might hop into Medium later tonight and play around, we'll see.

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10 hours ago, Dewar said:

When I load the puzzle I'm actually switching the buttons into reverse and the computer is pressing a bunch of random buttons, more if the difficulty is higher. This ensures that whenever I add a feature, the puzzle is consistently solvable as long as I add a reverse step.

 

Nice, that's really smart. And also why I'm totally disqualified to make puzzle games if I didn't even see that as a solution! :D

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I'm feeling some of my enthusiasm for this project waning now that I've figured out most of the difficult programming bits. I've decided to cut the random seed feature, and I finished redoing the buttons, so all I have to get done is re-doing the background and panel art. I have a couple of job interviews today (yay) so I'm hoping to hop into medium for an hour or two this afternoon. After that, I'll post the first draft to itch.io.

 

iQeeziR.png

 

 

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Whelp, I've put a lot of time in Medium sculpting some backgrounds, then taking photos of them, and lining them up. I'd post screen shots, except you can go and get it right now!

 

https://d3war.itch.io/grid-game?secret=SLekQ3V8bAy9oRJtkepED6b0rs

 

I already have a few things on the list to fix based on thing I noticed last moment and feedback from my wife, but things are looking up!

 

Create win celebration noise
Clean up green in background
Clean up font
Reverse swipe of menu items

 

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Well, I figured out that it was anti-aliasing that was messing up the fonts I was using. It was a heck of a head scratcher. I also finished everything on the list above besides the celebration noise, as well as a few other minor issues that I found while i was playing around. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be ready to go out to extended testing with a few non-technical friends.

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Some notes as I play:

For the menu, when I'm done reading through the settings and am looking to start playing, my eyes are at the bottom of the screen. The start button is way at the top though, which made me search for it a bit.

 

Things feel snappy and solid, it doesn't feel like I'm gonna break anything by clicking around wildly.

 

The short-circuited/broken keys were a fun way to change it up. Kept me playing longer than I would've without them.

 

Neat game! Definitely a good choice to do a small scope and get something finished quickly.

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Thanks for taking a look! I'll think about the arrangement of the menu and, if nothing else, will take that feedback into my next project.

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