Let's talk about making games!

I'd like to preface this by saying I've never used Unity or Blender before this assignment, and learned a ton from it. This game is only a prototype, and while creating this I faced many - and I mean MANY - technical difficulties, but also revelations and new ideas and understandings of game-making in many forms.

My original Bready Or Not! TTRPG was 20 pages of mechanics and math and details, so I wanted the digital prototype to be my chance to explore aesthetics and creating my own characters since I went so crazy with the technical aspects last time. As with my original product, this game is intended for those of us who don't like hardcore action game but still want to further a story via exploring and hitting stuff, and the experience is meant to be relaxing and beautiful, full of funny baking references. Think Legend of Zelda: BOTW meets AER: Legends of Old.

The aesthetic of my game was heavily inspired by the TTRPG cover, with the low-poly style as a 3D alternative to my flat, simple drawings. The colours in the mountains and terrain were styled after the pink-and-yellow sunset colours, and I added glowing lights in certain areas for that magical feel.

Using Blender

I used Blender to create my Slicer character, and learned from many hours on YouTube how to model, rig, colour, and animate them. It was a very long process and I actually ended up scrapping my original design, but this little journey-within-a-journey has definitely inspired me to create my own characters as well as prefabs or other assets for my own games.

Here is the original turnaround (very rough, just as an idea of what he would look like):

The original mistake Slicer:

And here are some shots of our Slicer in his Final Form(TM):

Unfortunately when I imported this guy into unity, something got messed up and one of his feet sticks out a little weird. I've spent hours trying to fix it but I couldn't figure out the problem, so I might have to start from scratch a third time or redo the rig completely. His eyes also don't really show up from the front for some reason, so I'd have to do those too.

Using Unity

I don't have a lot of experience with code and as previously mentioned, I wanted to keep my focus primarily on aesthetics and animation. I did, however, add a few lights that turn on when approached by the player (the castle light and the glowing pond tree, for example), and played around with the pre-made Unity Third-Person controller, switching animations around and experimenting with my own character and his movements. That resulted in this funny little pentagram here:

I used prefabs from the Unity Asset Store to create my environment, and paid a total of $7USD (I really wanted a castle!) but most of what I used didn't cost a cent. I wanted a pretty low-poly aesthetic with lots of colours, and when I couldn't decide on one environment I packed 4 into one: the 4 Corners of the Kitchendom. 

And then I want a little crazy with the different parts of my environment - manipulating shapes, switching colours, adding lots of details and layers and rigidbodies and mesh colliders.  Here is an aerial view of the finished product in all her glory, not seen in the trailer or DevDiaries video (and minus the fog):

Final Thoughts & Next Steps

When I think of this project I think of all of the things I wanted to do, and I feel bad about it. And looking back, I was definitely way too ambitious, but it was all of those crazy, excessive ideas that kept me working at it for as long as I did. 

As far as the Big Picture is concerned, I taught myself Blender in a matter of hours for a first timer, I'm pretty proud of that. Could I have done better? Probably, but for a solo project and my first exposure to both of these applications, I'm feeling good about it and I hope whoever reads this has grown attached to my world and the characters in it, too.

So what can you expect in addition to the content shown in the BON! trailer? Well:

• Moving objects - I added a bookcase doorway, I'd like the books to slide open when a lever is pulled or something
• Better animations. And less wonky feet.
• More characters to play as! We still need the Ryfleman, Starcher, and Breadic, plus the enemy molds and the Queen, and any villagers walking around.
• Object interaction!! I want to pick things up and use them to hit other things!
• Potionmaking in the secret potions room!
• Custom prefabs!

When I started this process I decided to record it. Little did I know, I would later have to sift through over 18 hours of OBS footage, and that's not even covering my whole project. Eh, the more you know. But if you'd like to watch the first episode of what I'm calling DevDiaries, please go ahead! I'm actually really attached to this project and it will probably be something I continue to work on and experiment with after I've handed this in to my game design prof finished.

Thanks for reading, have a good one!

Teo :D  (@teo.swf)