Project B - Journal Entry 3

26.4.2021 - Game finalization - 15 hours - Finished Implementation

Hello again!

I'm glad with the ideas that came out of this implementation.
There was a lot of stuff to implement, randomized level selector,
collectible coin mechanic, changes to gravity, tileset, sprites, particles,
animations, scene management and much more.

I did not have enough time to do everything I wanted, but at least it is playable.
Feel free to hop around in the world and try to finish the game.

In regards to Unity Engine and its 2D Game Kit.

My goal was to implement my own sounds and animate moves of main character but alas,
I spent a lot of time finding out I cannot do some features properly and hacking it instead.

Game kit we got is heavyweight, code in some scripts is inconsistent, transferring data between
scenes is a pain. Please let me know if there is any more elegant way other than having static data.

Particle effects were resisting any change, some components were difficult to configure.
I spent few hours only to glitch some settings in animator to do something at least similar to what I wanted to do.

2D kit is made without any abstraction between controller and animator, so if I change any sprite, game decides to protest.
If I override it manually, game overwrites it within its scripts. If I somehow get it to work, jump velocity changes.  You get the idea.

But enough of complaining, sorry for venting my own frustration with the kit in here, but I share it here in hope of you learning from my mistakes.

I'm excited to start with blank unity and implement my own systems refined exactly what I need them for.

I hope that creating my own assets did not worsen the overall experience of the game.
I could not get jump animation to work and got stuck without any sprite displaying so my plan is that your character is teleporting and not jumping. So don't get scared if you disappear after jumping.  Pretend you are teleporting, with particle effects showing you the way.

With that in mind, you might get why the new name is Spectral Shift.

Thank you for being here with me, and I hope I will see you soon in more positive post haha.
Overall, I'm glad with how it worked out.

See you in the next project!

Tino