Devlog #2

My game is coming along a little at a time, though it is already looking immensely more intriguing.  I am impressed by how much a world can come together with the addition of a few assets.  My theory is that the more layers I include in the levels the more alive these levels will feel, with understandable limits of course.  I have tested this theory with updates on my tile set and other assets thus far.

 The main reason for this change came from various problems associated with scaling.  Scaling works fine with higher resolution games, but the change works on every pixel which yields sprites with noticeable pixel size differences.  I made sure that all my sprites maintained a uniform scale but then the characters were too big for the tile set.  I gave the tile set a complete make over.  While implementing these fixes, I realized that I was restricting my artistic abilities by including the buildings and trees in the tile set.  Creating these assets as their own image textures drawn to scale permitted me to create sprites that were not restricted by the confines of 32X32 squares.  A town made of exclusively square buildings is a sad, boring town.

 In addition to these changes, I added an enemy with its own set of animations.  Animation is taking the majority of my time.  I am still learning about pixel art and animation which involve a lot of trial and error.  Pixel art may be a minimalist approach to design, but by no means is it easier than higher resolution art.  Trying to capture the look of an object or character in a simplified form is a challenge.  It becomes especially difficult when trying to create a character with complicated anatomy like a werewolf.  I am aware of the chonkyness of the animations, but  I have learned that it important to set things aside and move on.  This is especially true for me as an indie developer and beginner.  There will be time to make things look better further in the development process; It is important to move the project along otherwise I will end up learning a lot about a single topic without having a finished project. 

I have also programmed the bare bones of AI for my enemy, but I need to make changes to this system.  The main issue is that the enemy frequently moves behind sprites which is an undesired behavior.   This is happening because the level’s navigation component projects behind sprites near the foreground of the level which tells the enemy that it is allowed to move to these locations.  This is a hard fix because the only way for the navigation component to project onto a 2D surface using unreal engine is to adjust the collision thickness of the surface.  I cannot simply move the sprites further back because the player can see that sprites are further away in level space.  The best solution I have at the moment of this devlog is to do away with the navigation component entirely and program the enemy to change its location without using unreal engines AI system.  In theory this will solve my problem, be easier to implement, and will be sufficient for a 2d game. 

Before the next devlog I plan on designing additional scenery sprites and tiles.  There will also be sound effects, more animations,  and mechanics for movement and combat.  I will also be adding another simple level/scene for the game.  Please leave any comments you have in the provided section.  I am not looking for "This looks bad" comments because I am aware of my lack of experience, but feel free to leave these because there may be problems I am unaware of.  The best comments, however, are the ones that involve gameplay mechanics , or what would be interesting story points to include as the story will be implemented in the future.