August 24, 2024 || Week 3
Project: FIRST GAME || Time remaining: 341 days
Goal: Finish a very small scope, simple game in one year and then release it to Steam.
How?
- Creative Exploration & Learning - 3 months <-- (((We are here)))
- Primary Development - 6 months
- Test and Bugfix - 3 months
- Release - Research and schedule a time for release plus additional testing and feedback.
Why did I write this? To keep myself accountable and have something to look back on for progress as well as reference point and resource for anyone on a similar journey.
Work Log 3
Time spent: ~20 hours
Progress: A tiny cat platformer game
Morale: High
1. Switch Gears to 2D
I decided my spaceship game ideas weren't interesting enough. I tried to chase interesting gameplay but it all ended up feeling flat, so I started journeying in another direction for my exploration: 2D. I haven't worked with tilemaps or Paper2D in the past, so there is a ton of new concepts to learn.
I learned:
- How to create Tile Maps from sprite sheets.
- How to create Flipbooks from sprite sheets.
- How to work (generally) with 2D assets in UE5
- Limiting character movement to just X Z directions for movement.
2. Creating a main menu
This was super easy, tons of tutorials around made this quick to set up.
3. Localization (translating the main menu)
Arguably I didn't need to do this yet, but I started getting curious: How many languages can I expect to translate my game into? How difficult will it be to work with translations? Can I just wave a magic wand and say 'automatically translate everything please and thank you'. Conveniently the answer is yes. Unreal Engine 5 can export .po files which there are some tools to translate. I found this free tool Free Online PO Translator – Aaron's Flashcards (rate limited) for small translations. It's a simple as adding the localization keys, exporting them to the .po file, pasting the .po file into the translator, then pasting the result. It had minimal issues, the only manual translation I needed to do was "Options" in French.
Anyway, I expect translating into multiple languages won't be an issue unless I switch to a dialogue heavy game which will require more nuanced translations than the free translators.
4. Parallax jumping
I've always wanted a game where I can 'jump' into the parallax background. After getting my tile maps set up I was able to set the Y distance apart they were, then it was simply a matter of hooking up input on my character to change my Y + or - that set distance.
So far I'm quite pleased with how the effect has turned out. I have a lot of questions about how I might be able to scale this and design interesting levels/mechanics.