Not a Clone Progress Report #2

We’ve got a lot more progress to report this time around! Wonderful artist, Astra Wijaya put together some spectacular mockups for Not a Clone.

Progress has been made in other parts of the game as well:

  • A few mini-games change in difficulty depending on how well the player is playing
  • A new translation interface has been implemented in the game, to make it a lot easier to integrate new language options for international audience.

Incidentally, Not a Clone now has a new page!

Prototype: Murakami builds (as of February 5th, 2015)

While Prototype: Murakami has been punted to a lower-priority project, I do want to share how much progress I’ve made with it. I’ve noticed that the webplayers themselves has been doing poorly (I suspect it’s the Unity deferred lighting setting) so I’ve compiled and zipped the more-stable native builds. Here they are for each platform:

[download id=”1723″][download id=”1726″][download id=”1731″][download id=”1733″][download id=”1735″][download id=”1737″]

Prototype: Murakami Progress #08 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

I update the point & click portion of Prototype: Murakami with a rear-view mirror and an inventory space to drop your items into. There’s no items per se in the game yet, but the graphics are there for demonstration. At least the plank of wood now doesn’t look that bad anymore.

PrototypeMurakami08

So what’s with the rear-view mirror? Well, the idea is that time doesn’t stop when you’re approaching a point & click puzzle. While attempting to assess the puzzle, you’ll also have to keep track of what’s going on behind your character. This means I might put a few jump scares during the puzzle portion…

Prototype: Murakami Progress #07 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

Yesterday, I spent some time working on the point & click puzzle portion…and found it a lot more difficult than I expected. The point & click puzzle itself exists in the 3D space, so to convert that space into 2D controls requires a lot more math. So instead, I switched tasks and started on something simpler: being able to look around in third-person aiming mode.

PrototypeMurakami07

Similar to Resident Evil 4, this causes your character to stop moving entirely. Additionally, aiming is done using a laser rather than a reticle. Killer7 fans should immediately recognize what this part is for: to emulate the incredibly disjointed combat portion, just in third-person perspective.

Prototype: Murakami Progress #06 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

Today was a an incredibly busy day with the Bacon Game Jam voting period going on and the inauguration of the Tech Valley Game Space. I was able to fit in a few hours for Prototype: Murakami, though, to start on the point & click portion of the game. Behold!

PrototypeMurakami06

Alright, I admit it, it’s just a plank of wood. And I don’t think I’ll get any cookies when I say getting to here was a lot harder than I expected. Rest assured the next update will be a lot more interesting. In fact, you can playtest it right now!

Prototype: Murakami Progress #05 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

Now that the Bacon Game Jam has started, here’s a quick update: I fixed the buttons from last time. I’ve also improved the camera animation to react more quickly. Similar updates has been made to the menus as well. As mentioned earlier, point & click puzzles will be next.

PrototypeMurakami05

While I’m working on Bacon Game Jam, there might be a mysterious post that claims it’s automated. That’s the playable build of Prototype: Murakami! Now that the game is in a testable state, I’ve configured the automated system to post publicly to this blog. The prototype is, well, in super-early state, but it should bring better context to these development updates.

Prototype: Murakami Progress #04 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

Yesterday, I finished the navigation, and had a working menu system to navigate from one path to another. Today, I added in camera animations to provide better view on the paths the character can take. I’m still working on update the buttons to indicate direction, but as you can see in the screenshot below, I’ve made some progress on that as well.

PrototypeMurakami04

Once I fix the buttons (you can tell the text leaking out of the screen), the plan is to start on the Point & Click puzzles. For a week-long effort, it’s exciting to see the navigation working, but I still have a long way to go!

Prototype: Murakami Progress #03 (November 2014 #OneGameAMonth)

Last time, I was in the middle of the rail system, particularly on setting up a menu that shows up when approaching a fork. Today, I have a prototype of the menu letting you know of the branching paths. Clicking on the buttons in the screenshot below will put Unity-chan down that path. Escaping from the menu is as easy as just turning around with a key-press (currently assigned to shift).

PrototypeMurakami03

Next up will be the camera animation. In the screenshot above, it’s hard to tell that our heroine reached a fork. Thus it’ll be necessary to visually show that the path does indeed split. That’s a little hard to do with the current suspenseful camera angle, so triggers will be implemented to pan the camera out.