Things went wrong a lot
PRODUCTION
Troubleshooting . . .
WHAT
Troubleshooting issues during production
WHEN
01/03/2019
The initial code here was the basis I used for the point and click movement used in my previous design idea. Unfortunately this didn't work when incorporated with how I wanted the ship movement to work.
I added the 'Touch' function on the game and it worked perfectly with how I wanted the ship to move. If I was an actual game developer, this would also mean that the game could be played on mobile, which is a large segment of the market.
The ship moves correctly towards where the player has clicked, however when holding the mouse button down I have noticed a glitch where the object appears to vibrate.
Obvious mistake but something I initially forgot when creating the buttons for the scenarios. The 'Good'/'Bad' buttons on the third scenario (the options are the same as the first) would not disappear after being clicked on. This was because the instances of them were the same and it muddled up the logic. I created GoodButt2, changed the line of code and it works correctly now.
This wasn't a bug but a decision I made after putting the audio in. With the busy background music and the 'PEW' sound effect for the player bullets, the additional audio for the folding paper of the scenarios was too much.
Looking back on it, I could have muted all the audio except the background, which would have been less over the top. I decided at the time my target audience would prefer the pew pews rather than rustling paper.
The discovery of Families was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. The first box was from when I first started Level 2. Frustrated, I looked into some construct tutorials to see if there was an easier way of handling multiple objects that need to act the same. I have 4 families in this level: AllBlocks (which handles the blocks moving down the screen/destroying them when off screen), SilverBleb (so the player bullets can't pass through and to give damage to the player if hit), RightAnswer (for the correct answers the scenarios) and WrongAnswer (for the incorrect answers to the scenarios). This saved me countless hours in coding the movement, damage and score for each of the blocks. It also allowed me to give a whole family a behaviour, and adjust it all at once, which was very important for the blocks moving down the screen - the bullet angle for them all has to be set to 270.
When setting the angle of the family, I encountered two problems. The first, was that as in my initial attempt, I had put individual behaviours on the blocks - bullet. When I then added the family behaviour, the two cancelled each other out and they did nothing. Second, was that in order for you to manually set the angle, you have to remember to turn this box off.
The scenarios in Level 2 appear when a certain score is hit, and I wanted them to fade out to leave some time before the next scenario, possibly to add additional dialogue.
At first, it did nothing because I had forgotten to take out the code to destroy the dialogue after 10 seconds in the main code. One of the scenarios didn't fade away for some reason, and I discovered that it was because it didn't have the destroy dialogue ticked.
This was a confusing set of code to write, I had to first figure out the logic of what I wanted the game to do.
In simplified terms, if the player's defence is above 0, take points from the defence. If the player's defence is 0/less than 0, take points from the player's health.
I used families to simplify the coding, as the first two enemies in the level have multiple bullets that they fire. The family allowed me to write the defence/health system as simply as I could.
It took several attempts to get right, as at first I used an instance variable rather than a global variable and the defence system didn't work at all. I then had to play around with the wording/construction of the code.
The turret system required a lot of trial and error. There are a lot of settings that are not adjusted on the Event Sheet but in the behaviour itself, and I had to play the game lots of times in order to get a relatively fair balance of bullets/enemies on screen.
*During my playtest I will be asking my peers if they think it is too difficult for a 10/11 year old. I built the game so I am too familiar with the mechanics to provide an unbiased answer.
With predictive aim (in the turret settings) the bullets will actually appear to fire at the player. Without this, the turret is slow and shoots the bullet at the player's previous location.
With this level I wanted a lot more dynamic stuff to be happening with the enemies/bullets - which is why it is more challenging to play. The theme of this level was a console, so a game within a game would naturally be more difficult. There are also no pop up scenarios in this level, following on with the idea that the previous levels were learning experiences and this level is more fun. The enemies have to therefore carry the message of healthy relationships with recognisable symbolism for 10 year olds.
Making The Audio
WHAT
WHEN
Making the audio for my game
02/03/2019
The site Ambient-Mixer.com was where I created all my audio for my game. Within the channels, when you hit load, are lots of subfolders with different kinds of sounds/clips that people have uploaded - even a Foley Audio folder.
This range of ambient sounds allowed me to create the background music for my game, which is a mix of sci-fi and non-fictional sound clips. The sliders allowed me to adjust which clip I wanted to be most prevalent. Although I learnt how to make Foley Audio clips, and have access to the sound room at college, I was easier to use the various unique sounding clips that I found here.
I also got the sound effects for the player/items in game from this website. As I scrolled through the folders I found sound bites that I hadn't thought of and really liked. Experimenting on this site allowed me to quickly produce the audio for my game.
List of audio files used:
Library Ambience by blouhond from http://freesound.org
Dreamscape by Brad Breeck
Paper shuffling by GJOS from http://freesound.org
Children Playing by yacou from http://freesound.org
Using OBS software and Xilisoft, although not the best quality sound, I was also able to get some sounds from YouTube. These include the PEW PEW and the Hm No sound bites.
Sources:
https://youtu.be/dJklhk2368I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4DJM4SeQzc
If I were to do the project again I would commission musicians to make the background audio, and do the Foley sound myself. I would still use this website as useful inspiration when I can't think of what kind of sound effect to create.
Final Assets
WHAT
WHEN
Some of the final designs for my game
04/03/2019
Final Game
WHAT
WHEN
Final version of my game.
04/03/2019