Final Dev Log! (Maybe)

Dev Log 12/1/23

This is probably the last dev log you'll see from me, as this game has reached its completion for this semester. I've been slacking on uploading builds to itch (whoops) because this game has kept me so busy over the last two-ish months. There's a lot that's changed, mainly in the graphics department. The first character you play as (Juvy) is now fully modeled and animated, and the environment art is (nearly) fully implemented as well. There are NPCs scattered around the levels which will shout quips at you, as well as an NPC which you can have a sit down chat with after you finish the horde battle. Speaking of, there's a horde battle now! You'll fight off waves of grunt enemies, with the reward for defeating them being access to the sticky paint. Oh, and the paints are no longer obtuse cubes that spawn in, instead it's now simply a little sticker placed onto the environment with an area of effect around it. There are some known bugs, especially when it comes to the climbing paint, so rest assured I know that it will be a tad frustrating to use. The paints will also disappear after a certain amount of time. The bouncy paint will disappear after 10 seconds, and the sticky paint will disappear after 15 seconds.

This development process has been a bumpy ride. With team dynamics being iffy sometimes, work would slow down drastically some weeks. I ended up programming the vast majority of the systems you see in the game, despite having another programmer on the team working with me. A common problem I faced was their systems being obtuse, needlessly complex, and hard to iterate on. As a result, I'd often scrap large swathes of their work, in favor of redoing it myself. Sometimes I'd have to scrap the whole thing entirely. This left a lot of work on my plate, and did lead to severe burnout just after the last dev log was posted, hence the break. Thankfully, I managed to bring myself back around to do more work after a couple weeks, and kept the ball rolling as best I could.

Considering all I've said previously, there is a reason I say this might be the last dev log you see from me. I've been going back and forth on the idea of doing some bug solving and reworking of the other programmers systems because I can't keep my grubby little fingers off of them. If I do end up doing a little bit of bug fixing and developmental things, you will see me again. Otherwise, this is goodbye. I hope you enjoy what got done of this game in the 11 weeks I did development on it, because I know I am certainly proud of it.