Hi Everyone, and welcome to 2021. It's hard to believe it's been just over a year since starting Periodic, and I'm both surprised and disappointed with how much on the game I got done. The lack of consistency was by far the worst part with lots of curveballs being thrown in 2020, but it all boils down to the person doing the work. Needless to say, the project is coming along, and I've got some really cool stuff to show in the update!
TL:DR - Refactor done. New Level Select. Optimizations.
Update - Well that was a busy end to 2020. What all did I get done? Well to start, I managed to get the framework for simple AI setup, with plans to make it better in 2021. I also managed to revamp the Level Select screen significantly, got level unlocking working, and the huge refactor that was mentioned in Dev Log 10 finished and working. I also managed to do some optimizations with how my text loader reading from JSON works, and the true test is going to be running it on the 2015 low-end DragonTouch tablet I have to make sure things load quickly. Drop tables are also in using scriptable objects
Other things that have happened is I moved the completed level to be more of a "sandbox" for testing mechanics, and decided to kinda start from scratch on that level since I now know what I'm doing. I need to do some research on some level design mechanics to make the game fun to play, but that might need to come with playtesting.
For the Level Select screen, I decided to make it match the hexagon theme of the new logo. This shows a mental map of how I was going to structure the levels, with the beveled ones being the Noble Gasses.
All of the levels off the Noble gasses are a much lower priority, and may not ship with the game, but are definitely stretch goals. This game is going to differ from a classic Mega Man game as it's a bit more linear, but since it's just me it makes development a bit easier.
I think that covers all of the updates I have, as I've had my head down. I'm considering starting a YouTube channel to document progress, but that's a super low-priority thing right now. If people are interested, let me know and if I get enough push for it I might.
What's Next - More frequent updates on the game, getting some levels done, and getting some enemies designed and in.
I think that about wraps this up. Stay safe out there, and stay tuned for the next update!
-TJ
