Introduction

This month probably was my busiest so far, and yet, the one that I worked the most on my free time, which is funny because my free time was way shorter than for the last couple months and I was a really good procrastinator, I’m glad that I’m able to work things out and make some progress!

I recorded two videos for this update just to try it, you don’t need to watch them to fully understand my progress since I write about it anyway, it is just a plus. If you watch please leave brutal and honest feedback!

Projects

Zelda Souls:

I have developed a simple battle system, I show it and talk a little bit about it in the video below, if you don’t want to watch, don’t worry, I will write the same thing I said in the video

What I have:

I did a simple battle system with the features:

• Move up, down, to the left or right
• Attack using a Stamina based System
• Attack “feedback”
• Kill the Enemy
• Die to the Enemy
• When you get closer to the enemy it starts following you
• When you hit the enemy its life bar appears
• If you run from the enemy it will stop following you and his life bar will disappear from the screen

For some technical details you can watch the video (there is no programming in the video).

When I have a more polished battle system I think I will record something explaining each component better and maybe even show some code to really explain how I did it.

Thoughts:

Text Game: I did a blog post about it, the thing is, I’ve coded the “core” to make any text game I want and I just need some time and planning to have a finished text game.

The purpose of this was to write a post on how to do it, and I’m having a bit of trouble thinking in a way to write it, I would have to explain some theory and code stuff. I just have to figure it out.

Rock Paper Scissors: … and a Wild New Project appears, one of these days I was doing some thinking and I was having some thoughts on Hearthstone Ranked being similar to a rock paper scissors game, if you face X and Y decks you will probably lose, if you face W and Z decks, you will win unless you make some huge misplays. So I came up with this idea of doing a Hearthstone themed Rock Paper Scissors Game, it is “Jade Reno Pirates”.

I recorded a video talking about it and showing it, feel free to watch it or to just read below:

I did the logic in 1 day, on the other day I did the Artificial “Intelligence” to play it and on the other I did the art for “Jade”, “Reno” and the “Pirate” (see them at the Pixel Art Section)

I want to finish it on the next few days and try to release it before April 6, that is when new Hearthstone Expansion comes out and the “Rock Paper Scissors” experience can change (hopefully).

Pixel Art

What I Learned: Pixel Art needs time, but it is not as difficult as I thought it would be, and it is really easy to correct your mistakes. The best way to study it (for me) is to take at least from 30 minutes to 1 hour everyday to watch and replicate a lesson or to draw something.

Here is what I’ve done:

This is the character “Green Hood” and this is his Idle Animation!

And these are the sprites for Jade Reno Pirates:

In order: SMOrc Face (not included in the game actually), Pirate Face, Jade Face and Reno Jackson, the other drawing is me trying to draw myself.

Game Music Composition

What I Learned: Music Composition is something that you really have to take your time and not rush it, the best way (at least for me) to do it, is to take 1 or 2 days of the week to work on it from 3 to 4 hours straight, working a bit everyday won’t be as effective.

This month I got back to learning a bit of Game Music Composition and I finished the 8 bit section on the Udemy Course I’m following!

I did this small piece of 14 seconds, it’s based on a kpop music, Dumb Dumb by Red Velvet, and it’s the intro of this music in 8 bit

I made this other piece, I composed some of it and used the same music as an inspiration for the main part.

I feel like the ending is a little bit “off”, but the FL Studio Demo Version does not allow opening saved projects, so I can’t fix it…

Goal Setting

This month I also learned about setting S.M.A.R.T goals, S.M.A.R.T stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. I would always tell myself “today I will work 1 hour in Pixel Art”, but didn’t quite have any motivation or purpose to do it, but following the rule, I would tell myself something like “Today I will watch these two online classes on Pixel Art and try to replicate what he do” or “Today I will get this character reference and try to draw his face”. And I think it works better for me, because I know exactly what I’m going to do when I start working in the subject. Cool.

Also, I’ve been with these courses on Udemy for quite some time already, Now I want to start applying what I learned, that means doing real art for my games and composing music for them.

Goals for Zelda Souls:

I’ve been with this project for 2 months now and I still haven’t decided everything so I can finish a Game Design Document, this can’t go on like that, I have to take the following decisions until the end of April:

• Art Direction
• Name
• User Interface
• Sound/Music
• Story and Characters
• Features/Mechanics (this one I have 80%)

Then I want to finish tweaking the battle system. I hope I can do it in the first week of April, and then I want to work on a Tile Map Creator, so I can easily create the maps for the game.

• Goals for Other Projects: I want to finish “Jade Reno Pirates” until April 5th, I have to draw a background and UI elements and compose a simple music to play while you play, I should be able to do it. For the text game, I want to come with a good way for writing the post about it, giving that it is almost finished.
• Goals for Pixel Art: As I said before, do a background and UI elements for the “Jade Reno Pirates” game. Finish the sections “TopDownTiles” and “Creating HUD Elements” for the course I bought on Udemy. Lastly, I want to have a spritesheet for the main character of Zelda Souls, not a definitive one, but one with the art direction I want, it should have idle, walking, attacking and rolling animation.
• Goals for Game Music Composition: Complete the section “Character Music” or “Rpg Battle Theme”, compose a music for “Jade Reno Pirates” and compose a city theme for the initial city of Zelda Souls

… This was actually a really long update