Diner Drop is live! The development log for Diner Drop started back in early May of this year and even in that first one you could see the basic elements: falling lettuce buns, a magical garbage can that gets rid of everything, and our main hero(ine) Chef moving back and forth.
Now we’re here.
Sure, there’s more than just falling lettuce buns (12 other unique falling food items to be exact, thank you very much) and the garbage can isn’t quite as magical but Chef is still here and still moving back and forth.
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Godot in a gif(fy): The Final Countdown
Diner Drop part 12
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
ALL the changes What’s changed since last time? v0.14.0 Move on up! New (hopefully) easier to use control scheme. Mobile: move by tapping and holding on the left and right buttons at the bottom or any point directly above them (all the way to the top of the screen) Desktop: keyboard input only now (A and D or left and right arrow keys to move and S or down arrow to interact) Moved the informational UI elements (level, score, and timer) to the top of the screen to stop it from blocking what Chef is holding Made it easier to interact with customers by increasing the serve area to the left and right of their centre point High score!
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Making a Game in 48 hours
Or how I went "Out of Control" participating in my first real game jam
Following up the post I wrote about making a game in one day with this one may seem like a step back, going from 22 to 48 hours.
The difference is there’s no qualification of development time vs actual time passed; this time I didn’t have the luxury of spreading my development over 4 days.
2 days. 48 hours.
That’s all the time I had to think, plan, and develop. Not to mention also eat, sleep, and tend to other normal bodily functions.
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Making a Game in One Day
Or how I unintentionally held a one participant game jam
Making a game is tough. We’ve read it in countless books and articles, heard it on podcasts, and seen it in the first hand video accounts of developers.
Making a game in a limited amount of time is tougher. Looming deadlines are always in the back of your head and crunch time seems to be an industry standard practice that doesn’t appear to be going away.
Making a game in the limited time span of one or two days should be the toughest then.
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Documentation and the Art of Reading
Lately I’ve been messing around with terraform; using it to set up cloud infrastructure for a practice project I’m working on. The syntax used in the configuration files it processes is easy to use but now and again, I need to check the docs. Thankfully they’re well written, nicely formatted, and contain lots of examples to follow along with.
And yet it still took me hours to implement what I thought would be a trivial config.
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Godot in a gif(fy): I don't have ALL day
Diner Drop part 11
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
Easy Peasy
What’s changed since last time?
v0.13.0
- Impatient customers! Customers will no longer wait indefinitely for their order
- A countdown timer starts when the customer arrives and will change their shirt colour the closer it gets to 0
- Shirt colour now starts out green and progresses to yellow and finally red
- Serving a customer will now grant points based on how long they’ve been waiting
- The time extension granted on correctly served orders is now related to how close the customer is to leaving
- More time is granted the closer they are to leaving
- A countdown timer starts when the customer arrives and will change their shirt colour the closer it gets to 0
- Difficulty levels
- Starts out with just one customer and increases the number of customers for each level gained
- One additional customer will spawn with each new level starting at level 3
- Level is increased after serving 3 customers correctly
- Level and customers served in it are displayed above the score as:
CURRENT_LEVEL
-CUSTOMERS_SERVED
- Bug fixes
- Customers no longer change state and leave after game over
- Customers no longer change state on start screen
Godot in a gif(fy): Sugar Rush
Diner Drop part 10
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
RTFM
What’s changed since last time?
v0.12.0
- Added instructions page
- Includes background “story”, how to play, and controls
- Sugar! Do do doo do do doo…
- New orders: donut and pop (soda) with two item parts each
- Updated order matching code to work with varying sizes of orders instead of just 3 items
- All current orders and their parts are pictured below:
- Updated food spawning code to only spawn items that aren’t currently being held
- If all current order items are held, then ANY food item in the game can spawn (even if it’s not in a current customer’s order)
- Added a new font
- Unified all text to use the same font
- Bug fixes
- Game crashing bug occurred if game over was caused by all customers leaving
Godot in a gif(fy): I'll Tell You What I Want
Diner Drop part 9
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
Variety is the Spice of Life
What’s changed since last time?
v0.11.0
- Customers now show their order above their heads!
- Moving in front to interact will tint the order based on what Chef is currently holding: red if incorrect, green if correct (provides a quick way of seeing if held order is correct)
- Two new orders!
- New orders: pizza and ice cream sundae
- Food items (parts of orders) will only spawn if they’re in at least one customer’s order
- All current orders and their parts are pictured below:
- Added final score to game over screen
- Removed garbage can interaction popup
- Bug fixes
- Reduced number of items needed to trigger a game over (was too high after adding “Slide to Move” area)
Godot in a gif(fy): I Like to Move It, Move It
Diner Drop part 8
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
Just One for Me, Please
What’s changed since last time?
v0.10.0
- Retooled input and movement
- Added a “Slide to Move” area: tap and slide in it to move Chef
- Tap on brown area (with customers and stools) to interact
- Mouse input
- Emulates touch input now (must move mouse in the “Slide to Move” area and hold down left button to move)
- Click on the brown area to interact OR right click anywhere
- Added timer to customer to stop spamming of incorrect orders (protects against multiple accidental interaction inputs)
- Made the area above the garbage can a “safe area”: food won’t spawn over it
- Removed desktop input toggle options (keyboard and mouse inputs are still usable)
- Updated start screen instructions
- Bug fixes
- Fixed bug that served multiple times when interact input pressed once
- Fixed bug that didn’t allow scrolling of instructions on touch screens
- Fixed bug that crashed game when pressing a key while holding mouse button
Godot in a gif(fy): Time to Start Me Up
Diner Drop part 7
Click here to play the most up-to-date version
Disco Fever
What’s changed since last time?
- Fancy new start screen!
- Colourful title now shows you what you’re playing
- Instructions on how to play in a scrollable text area
- Added a round timer of 60 seconds
- Serving correct orders increases time available by 3 seconds
- Serving incorrect orders decreases time available by 2 seconds