v0.3.0-alpha | “Tell ‘em Rampage did it (added twin stick controls)”

I can’t believe how fast the last two months have flown by! My game dev day job has been busier than usual as we prepare for classroom testing, leaving me with less time for side projects, relaxation, and life in general…

That said, I’m a workaholic, and you only live once! So, I made great progress on Part Time Hero anyway 💪

Let me share what I’ve been working on and some of the cool stuff I’ve put together.

In a previous milestone, I implemented a sample scene to test out 2.5D side-scrolling combat, movement, mechanics, etc., using a package called Corgi Engine from More Mountains. My primary goal for this milestone was to import and implement another asset from More Mountains called TopDown Engine (TDE), which offers top-down gameplay mechanics—if you couldn’t tell by the name. I wanted to try them out side by side to see what interesting gameplay options emerge when using them for different situations: Corgi Engine for combat and exploration, and TopDown Engine for job mini-games.

TopDown Engine offers most of the core mechanics I’m looking to use for the job mini-games, like twin-stick controls and aiming, weapons, object interaction, jumping, dodging, enemy AI, etc. It also includes a nice extendable framework to build custom weapons, abilities, AI agents, and more. It’s a pretty common asset, and I’m willing to bet you’ve played other games using it too! I’m stoked to dig into it more and see what cool stuff I can create.

In addition to the TDE mechanics, I needed to implement some basic data structures to handle location- and job-specific variables. You’ll see some of my notes about this on my whiteboard.

I set up the basic structure so each location can individually track and save whether there is work or a quest available, and the Overworld UI markers will update accordingly. It will probably be replaced with a better-planned and structured system later, but this should suffice for now.

In the build on the Overworld map, you’ll now see two new locations:

• TopDown Engine Example
  • An example scene included in the TDE package, using sample prefabs, scripts, scene hierarchy, etc.
• Job Sandbox
  • A fresh scene using my own PTH systems, integrating my own prefabs, animations, weapons, materials, etc.
  • Welcome Sandbox Bill! He will be our crash test dummy during the prototype phase. Wish him luck! 😄

As usual, everything I’m talking about is available to play in your browser here!. Follow my production roadmap too.

Now that all the core functionality required for the game client is in place, I can start digging into some fun stuff! The next milestone will focus on fleshing out the core gameplay mechanics of the job and action scenes, including an example playable mini-game.

Thanks again to anyone who reads this far. I hope you have an amazing holiday season. Take the time to tell your favorite people how much you love them!

xoxo

—Ken Rampage