game-dev

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. [Read More]

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! [Read More]

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. [Read More]

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. [Read More]

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
• 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

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

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)

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

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

Click here to play the most up-to-date version

Mobile-ize

What’s changed since last time?

• Diner Drop can now be played in your browser!
  • Works on both desktop and mobile
  • All future builds will be published at that link so check back for updates
• Multiple input methods available
  • On desktop you can choose to play with mouse or keyboard controls
    • Mouse: Move Chef by moving the mouse and click anywhere in the bottom area (where the stools are) to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of Chef
    • Keyboard: Move Chef left with a or left arrow, right with d or right arrow, and interact with things with s or down arrow
    • You can toggle them on and off with either m for mouse controls or k for keyboard controls (shown by either an M or K in the top left of the screen)
  • On mobile, Chef will follow your finger much like the mouse movement above
    • Tap and drag to move Chef and tap anywhere in the bottom area (where the stools are) to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of Chef
• Game over screen now shows a message about why the player lost
  • Game over now shows if you have too many held food items
• Bug fixes
  • Fixed food items spawning off screen
  • Only the top item of the food stack being held has collision detection (gif above demonstrates how the sides have no collision)
  • Fixed issue where tapping and dragging to move on mobile would cause Chef to serve to a customer unintentionally