January and February Update

Cutting the pretense and just getting straight into it.

Nope, didn't do an update in January. Yep been very busy.

Biggest thing of note? Been doing way more prototyping. For Quack Island I was finding it difficult with exactly how best to contribute to development at this stage. Yeah documentation and specifications are good, but there's a reason prototyping exists - sometimes it really is the best way to communicate an idea.

My hesitenacy was with the fact that I can only really prototype in 2D, where as Quack Island is a 3D game. But I put that problem aside for long enough to cobble something together. A sort of 2D top down version prototype that included some of the features that I thought the game should include.

This idea isn't entirely wacky - Nintendo was very open with the fact that for Breath Of The Wild they had a 2D top-down prototype modelled off the original NES Zelda game. It didn't include every single feature that BOTW would eventually have, but it helped get across the core of their idea.

And that's what I think I have managed with some parts of this 2D prototype. It's given us a basic implementation of the loop involving ducks and player progression, as well as some of the surrounding gameplay. It's even helped us make some decisions on things to change and things to remove or add. I'm keeping wording vague on the off chance this all becomes very successful and I need material for the Bonus behind the scenes content.

Also did some work on Mark II - after diving into the thick of prototyping with Quack Island, it made me realise that I could do the same with Mark II, and that there was no real need for hesitation. I also decided to strip down the intended abilities/weapons of the player in Mark II. You can thank Halo Infinite for that decision. I'm aiming for a core of four different abilities that each have an offensive ability, but also a practical ability to be used in other ways.

I'll add screenshots/videos here if I manage to capture anything useful.