Dev Log: UI Day!

Basic gameplay is working, and I was having some difficulties deciding what to do next. I chose to do something easy and fulfilling, so it became UI day!

I started out with setting a panel prefab parent, but realized the layout wasn't what I was looking for. I hit up my old friend Miro to do some wireframing.

Basic UI panel wireframing

Once that was done, I just jumped into engine and started working. I completed the following:

• Set up main Panel prefab parent
• Set up Button prefab parent
• Created temp button art and simple 9-sliced panel backgrounds
• Scripted Panel string updater so I don't have to hardcode anything.
• Will switch over to a string db at some point down the road. I've been wanting to learn how to do that.
• Set up Main Menu, Pause Menu, Gameplay UI prefabs (scalable to UI size)
• Clickblocker included for things like the Pause Menu.
• Set up Signal/Receivers for gameplay and pause menu.
• Stroke counter functional
• Pause menu functional (timescale set to freeze gameplay.
• Main Menu > Gameplay > Pause > Main Menu flow functional

That was a lot for one day, but again, super enjoyable. I've missed just building/scripting. The end result looks like thiiiis:

What's up next? Now that I have the UI working, I'm going to focus on getting the level select/progression structure built. Once that's done, I can start whipping together some more test levels and tune the gameplay to my liking!

Until next time!

Golfing with a twist

I realized recently that I've missed just making games.

Sitting down, and building things. I've spent a lot of time over the past four years at various companies working on product development, design direction, documentation, tuning, balancing, and leadership skills... but not a lot of just building from scratch.

Well, now that I have some time again, I've started brushing up on my old coding skills.

2 days to prototype after I figured out Unity's new Input Manager, and I have something fun and playable! I'm trying to rebuild an old chestnut from earlier in my career that I never got to fully develop.

Next up is polishing the sticking, and adding some extra juice. I want it to feel absolutely perfect when playing on device.

A Look Back - Halloween 2015

I was poking through some old photos the other day and came across my Halloween costume from 2015: Zant the Usurper King (Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). I had this project in mind for years prior, but somehow 2015 was the year.

Made with foam floor tiles, contact cement, paint, and a crazy amount of planning. The armor set came together over the course of 2 months (Sept/Oct). The full costume consisted of the following:

• Shoulder Armor (foam)
• Helmet (foam)
• Mouth Guard (removable, attached by magnets)
• Robe
  
• Pants (sewed them myself!
• Gold Dragon shoes
  

My favorite part was the mouthpiece. Magnets place inside it and the helmet allowed me to remove and re-attach it with ease. I was initially going to do face paint underneath, but due to time constraints, I decided to go without. The helmet was more than enough.