DIMB - Dev Blog #2

Another week another dev blog. Even though it's only week two, I think it's a valiant effort. 

This week was mostly bug fixing, the most fun part of game development. The bugs that got fixed weren't even sexy dramatic bugs or anything, they were proper dull things. Like the "Skip Dialogue" button not actually skipping dialogue. 

Besides that we managed to add in more art work and animations, namely adding in the complete locked door/unlocked door animation. I had to re-structure some of the rooms to fit the new doors as their dimensions didn't exactly match the place holder block sprites I had used up until now. I also had to mess about with making the locked doors depth dynamically change depending on the players position.

In GM: Studio, an objects depth dictates if it appears in front or behind another object. The locked door is one of the few instances where it needs to be both in front and behind the player at different times. The code is relatively basic, but it didn't work for what felt like an eternity (it had been about 15 minutes). It turns out the issues was actually due to the sprite's origin point being completely out of whack, so it always thought the player was in front of it. So with some quick tweaking that was sorted.

I realised I didn't mention in last weeks dev blog that I'd added in the second room of the Boss challenge. The Boss encounter is made up of five rooms; three actual encounters with the Boss and two challenge rooms in between encounters. The first encounter and the first challenge room are now both complete. 

My aim is to get at least another encounter and another challenge done within the next week.

And finally, I got a laptop now that can allow me to work whilst out of the house, and it has already proven itself invaluable. There is something strangely calming about bug fixing on a train.