http://www.deadofday.com/index.htmlHot News!enen2018-09-06T19:45:00+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Thu, 6 Sep 2018 19:56:57 +0100Dead of Day Blog2018-09-06T19:45:00+01:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/9f20b65f05fc12e5b078315a22a0ec39-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/9f20b65f05fc12e5b078315a22a0ec39-9.html#unique-entry-id-9Build 0.23 Pre-Alpha

Notes:
A major decision was made a couple of months ago to convert the game to a new game engine, for both speed of development, support and portability. This move to a new engine has been problematic in terms of needing to learn a new way of creating code/engine usage. The plan being that the short term pain will be gained in longer term ease of code as the game code gets more complex, one area that the current version of Fusion really falls down badly on (I love using it but it's so awkward to manage when you have lots of objects on screen).

So this sprint has been very much about converting as much as possible of the old game code to Game Maker 2 code. This does mean in the future there is a possibility of moving to platforms such as Switch. It's going to take a good 3 or 4 weeks more I feel to convert across but now the process has been started I've just got to get back to where we were when using Fusion and hope the decision is the right one.

Screens completed
+ Initial Logo Screen Converted
+ Splash Text Screen Converted
+ Main Menu Screen Converted
+ Credits Converted
+ Options Screen Converted

Systems Implemented
+ Language System Created
+ Screen Fade System Implemented

Work-In Progress
+Load Screen

Over the next week we hope to have finished the load screen and moved onto the character selection screen.]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-07-01T17:20:00+01:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/2a9cdd6a50b129e075ab58d5423e2dff-8.html#unique-entry-id-8http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/2a9cdd6a50b129e075ab58d5423e2dff-8.html#unique-entry-id-8Build 0.21 Pre-Alpha

Notes:
List of Fixes:

+ Main Hub: New Feature: When purchasing a building it will now "Fade in" when going back to the hub screen. If you close the app/come back it will appear without the fade
+ Main Hub: Moved some of the data to an ini file which will end up being encrypted. It's a lot easier to program for now
+ Main Hub: Bug fix: Clickteam fixed an issue with encryption of the ini++ object which was preventing files from being encrypted and then back again
+ Main Hub: Bug fix: Fixed issue with duplicate items not appearing when purchased
+ Main Hub: Bug fix: Fixed issue of not being able to purchase items if opened/closed

+ Data: Added character name data to system

+ Art: Achievement icons completed
+ Art: Trading cards completed
+ Art: Emoticons completed
+ Art: Profile screens completed
+ Art: Badges completed

+ Steam: Added achievements to steam
+ Steam: Added trading cards to steam
+ Steam: Added emoticons to steam
+ Steam: Added profile screens to steam
+ Steam: Added badges to steam
+ Steam: Added store front artwork to steam and set pricing
+ Steam: Build first ever steam game build, uploaded and all works :)

]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-06-01T15:28:00+01:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/879bf45e9e952b1d02cbaa34982b76fb-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/879bf45e9e952b1d02cbaa34982b76fb-7.html#unique-entry-id-7Build 0.21 Pre-Alpha

Notes:
List of Fixes:

+ Main Hub: Inventory: Completed recycle system of objects
+ Main Hub: Inventory: Fixed Female inventory portrait which was showing as male
+ Main Hub: Removed fine detection that was causing buttons to flicker

+ Main Menu: Found the fade was generating multiple fade objects, this wasn't affecting performance on normal computers but on a surface pro it was causing the fades to take longer (dropping frame rate). So going to load screen was taking 5 seconds longer on surface, which might happen on slower machines.
+ Main Menu: Removed deletion of fade because it causes a slight flash effect that is only noticeable on slower computers
+ Main Menu: Removed fine detection that was causing flickering

+ Load Screen: Removed fine detection that was causing flickering

+ Credits: Removed fine detection that was causing flickering
+ Credits: Decreased fade time

+ Options: Removed fine detection that was causing flickering
+ Options: Fixed issue with full screen icon, had graphical effect in the middle of it

+ Intro Story: Added story graphic for Spanish flu/fade
+ Intro Story: Fixed music fade. Wasn't fading when moving to the next screen

+ General: Fixed issue with back button not working on load screen
+ General: Fixed issue with inventory icons showing on other screens
+ General: Replaced temporary loading screen text with something more game related as people noticed placeholder :)
+ General: Added new text string for "Loading Complete" so that I can keep the hints text on screen and not remove it as the text was too long to read it in the 3 second load time
+ General: Character selection - bit of a tidy up and optimisation]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-05-01T13:07:00+01:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/274d74df306588f5942d8f2f820ebe2d-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/274d74df306588f5942d8f2f820ebe2d-6.html#unique-entry-id-6Build 0.20 Pre-Alpha

Notes:
This sprint has all been about moving the core screens forward.

I do hope that the game has more to show in terms of playable content unlike my games last showing last September. I guess this just shows how hard being a part time indie developer can be. The game has moved forward, but perhaps some of it is more behind the scenes than what the player will see. Oh well we shall see in the next two weeks :)

List of Fixes:

+ Main Hub
++ HQ Screen: Added Health Bar to Character 1 Slot
++ HQ Screen: Fixed all portraits - sizes incorrect
++ HQ Screen: Added code to display portrait after character enters cabin
++ HQ Screen: Fixed character portrait display issues
++ HQ Screen: Made health bar only appear when character has appeared
++ HQ Screen: Updated smoke effects on cabin
++ HQ Screen: Tutorial: Moved arrow positions

++ Upgrades: Fixed issue with not resetting purchase boxes
++ Upgrades: Removed temp image and put in cabin graphic (upgrades)
++ Upgrades: Fixed issue with clicking off screen purchasing items

++ General: Re-organised code to spread out intro sequence
++ General: General text fixes

+ Story Screen
++ General: Fixed music fade issues
++ General: Fixed incorrect screen jump

+ Logo Screen
++ Loaded in music and sound variables into global values so that they would be available elsewhere

+ Main Menu
++ Fixed missing continue button which prevents loading a saved game/continue

+ Load Game
++ Removed old bin icons

+ Inventory
++ Added character portrait to the inventory system
++ Fixed issue of items appearing on the wrong screens
++ Added three list objects to handle inventory
++ Removed three list objects in inventory when found a better way of implementing it
++ Hid text and inventory slots at start of game/continue
++ Added destroy/recycle to language database and placed within game
++ fixed issues with adding/removing items
++ added designer art for character slot icons
++ Changed inventory system to handle pool/hq items independently
++ Added icon/text/title/description for inventory items

]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-04-01T16:05:00+01:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/412cdeb8f763e154cfc6d9e067323488-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/412cdeb8f763e154cfc6d9e067323488-5.html#unique-entry-id-5Build 0.19 Pre-Alpha

Notes:
This last sprint (0.19) has all been about moving the introduction sequence and the start of the game sequence (on the main game hub) to something more approaching a finished state in terms of having all of the animations and code in place before a final polish run through.

It's been a hard slog this sprint, but we have been getting further along bit by bit and it's making a difference to how the game is coming along, its starting to feel exciting adding in every little bit of code, seeing the changes to the state of the game.

List of Fixes:
+ Hub Screen
++ Started tutorial introduction sequence.
++ Translation for day.
++ Separated graphics for resources, they were too close together.
++ Added tutorial test text.
++ Added designer art pointer to point out items in tutorial.
++ Added remove tutorial dialog icon so player can remove tutorial at any point.
++ Art team provided new seasons icons, added into game.
++ Art team provided new animated tutorial arrow, added into game.
++ Sorted out position of animated arrow/tided up.
++ Added male/female characters to the intro sequence.
++ Added door closing animation to intro sequence.
++ Added cabin smoke animation to intro sequence.
++ Added code to handle character walking, smoke and door closing.

+ Storying Introduction Screen
++ Added skip text to advise player they could skip if needed.
++ Updated Egypt story frame, more work required on animation.
++ Added moving plane to world map story frame.
++ Added cloud animation for above aircraft, in airplane story frame.
++ Added colour flicker to witch Dr graphic story frame.

+ Load Screen
++ Implemented art work for create/delete options in dialog box.
]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-03-01T16:04:00+00:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/f7a0bb0fe7210782ccae13708587410a-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/f7a0bb0fe7210782ccae13708587410a-4.html#unique-entry-id-4
Notes:
Made some good forward progress this week. Got through a few screens that are now in a nearly completed state (except for very minor polish). I have one more screen to do (story intro screen) before I begin to tackle screens that contain multiple elements and more importantly gameplay. I will be excited to see how much work I remember I had done on them and finally begin to tackle gameplay content rather than screen and flow issues.

Next Work Sprint:
We will begin to improve the story introduction sequence, this is what provides some background into how the zombie virus spread across the world. It is all hooked up code wise and works as expected, the problem is that it needs more movement on screen to make it interesting visually. I am going to try a few basic movements by using elements that have already been created.

List of Fixes:
+ Load Screen
++ Load Game Screen: Updated background to remove hard coded "Load Game" text
++ Load Game Screen: Replaced hard coded buttons.
++ Load Game Screen: Updated text with translation system
++ Load Game Screen: Fixed text not being removed when displaying pop-up box
++ Loading Screen: Replaced Loading Image with text
++ Loading Screen: Replaced continue button with translated item.
++ Loading Screen: Added Helpful Hints text, using random number generator to pick from (currently) 5 items.

+ Options Screen
++ Options Screen: Updated background to remove hard coded "Options" text
++ Options Screen: Replaced Language selected graphic with text option.

+ Character Selection Screen
++ Character Selection: Text moved to translation system.
++ Character Selection: Replaced hard coded buttons.
++ Character Selection: Redid Background Card images
++ Character Selection: Added character intro text to this screen, rather than a later screen. Need to be careful of text sizes here, could be problematic.
++ Character Selection: Replaced scrolling elements on screen with appearing, much easier to program and less problematic
++ Character Selection Screen: Added dust effect, currently one piece of dust generated every 1s, consider adding more types and times later.
++ Character Selection: Animated Pick Buttons
++ Character Selection: Fixed up Close character sheet
++ Character Selection: Connected next steps to Character "Pick" buttons

+ Other
++ Story Intro Flow: Wasn't taking new save from loading screen to story screen.]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-02-01T16:02:00+00:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/bce0b873b14e4371ce5f2bd8a255f060-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/bce0b873b14e4371ce5f2bd8a255f060-3.html#unique-entry-id-3
Starting to get more organised as the project is starting to take longer than expected and hoped, so its time to start using project management systems to ensure that I keep motivated but also so that I can see that progress has been made.

The last couple of weeks I've been going through some of the screens in turn and adding multi language support and starting to fix up things that I had put in but were not really working as expected.

Upgraded Trello to Gold, so that I can take advantage of the advanced features and the ability to upload larger files, this will be important later on when identifying polish items.

+ Created language translation system, supports multiple languages
++ English, French, German
+ Converted Splash logo screen to translation system
+ Converted Intro text splash screen to translation system
+ Converted Credits screen to translation system
+ Converted Options screen to translation system
+ Fixed Main Menu's buttons both graphically and placement
+ Fixed a number of screens fade - graphics and audio
+ Began process of converting Load Game screen to translation system
+ Options Screen fixes
++ Fixed fullscreen button, now allows fullscreen and window swap in real time
++ Fixed music and sound level buttons
++ Fixed saving of options to global values, now saves and loads correctly]]>Dead of Day Blog2018-01-01T15:58:00+00:00http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/bbc64dfea652e09ad3347b4eda63a243-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.deadofday.com/blog/files/bbc64dfea652e09ad3347b4eda63a243-2.html#unique-entry-id-2
It's really useful for us to let our friends/followers know how we are getting on, and it also provides an added element of motivation as we can see how much we are achieving. Come back here to keep up-to date with development or follow our twitter account to get the latest news and updates (as our website can run behind these other social media systems).]]>