Monday, May 28, 2018

Monkeys and rewards

Lettin' it rain...

Rewards given at the end of a battle

I used the monkey art from Gassy Goat, by animating him in Spine and exporting for Unity. He delivers all the goods at the end of a successful battle. These rewards are predetermined, and include the in-game currencies of coins and fruit, and different keys for unlocking loot.

Reward chests with keys. I just noticed that I need to change the color of the explosions.

Loot is unlocked by using keys of the five elements. Certain heroes, skills, and equipment can only be unlocked by a particular elemental key. For example, the frog and all of his weapons and skills are found exclusively in green chests.

Hmm, so eventually, players will accumulate all weapons, skills, and heroes, leaving nothing left to unlock, correct? Yes. But, there is a hard cap on the maximum upgradeable ranks of each of these (currently 12). The enemies however, have no cap on their maximum rank; the game eventually gets too difficult to continue. At that point, there will be an option to "ascend" by resetting the game for permanent reward points to invest into bonuses for the next playthrough. If I do this correctly, then it should allow unlimited playability and a competitive leaderboard.

Speaking of monkeys, recently I explored the private monkey park here in Ubud, on the Indonesian island of Bali.

A macaque deeply contemplating his metaphysical existence and the meaning of life.
Or, how to jump onto my shoulders to conspicuously steal snacks out of my backpack.

I am completely nomadic now, renting different Airbnb accommodation each month from here on out. Ubud for one month, Canggu for the next on an extended visa. I have noticed many other digital nomads here in Ubud, typically found in some of the incredible cafes scattered downtown. The food here is healthy and the scenery is gorgeous. I will write more in my next entry.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Map Loadout

I found and purchased some vertical maps and more background art from a Korean company on the Unity asset store. These are a great fit for the map loadout screen, where battles and minigame stages can be selected.

Vertical maps (21+)

Backgrounds pack (20+)

The vertical maps are seamlessly tiled vertically. At first I was looking to work out a license for some dungeon-crawler maps, but that fell through; I'm glad though, the vertical scrolling maps have more variety. Based on these assets, I can intentionally design and create appropriate enemies to go with them.

Map Loadout

The difficulty of a battle can be voluntarily increased for additional risk and rewards. I went back and forth between the editor and Clip Studio Paint, splotching down rough doodles on top of the empty game screen and then finalizing them. Overnight I decided I was satisfied with it, so I exported everything and then spent the day scripting it.