Enhanced object transparency and hair!

Hello! Long time no post. I've been busy. Just booted up the project today, hoping to work on some items XML stuff, when I got distracted by the object transparency. I had originally made it work only halfway. See, if you were behind multiple objects, it would only make one transparent. Not really helpful there. So I changed it today so that being behind multiple objects will make them all transparent.

And I've been quietly modeling some hairstyles. Hair is difficult to model nicely. Trying to make something that's many thin shapes into one giant shape that still flows nicely. Need more practice.

Left hairstyle was based on a pony I made for a Flash dress-up game called Penny the Pony. Translating from 2D to 3D is always a pain. Now you have to make things look good from multiple angles on a 3D surface instead of only one dimension on a 2D surface.

My goals remain the same - work on interiors, (I've got a sketch of Stella's interior done) work on the items XML, work on a nice inventory interface, maybe get these hairstyles in the game so my pony is no longer bald... there's so many things I could possibly work on I don't think I should list all of them. So many!

Ponyland Logo

I made a logo for Ponyland.

Also made a square one for social media, if I ever get far enough to have some.

Like all things in this project, they're subject to change and improve.

I also updated the blog's theme a bit. Added a polka dot background and did some other minor CSS changes.

Gem Glitz update and one-year retrospect

I renamed Gemswap to Gem Glitz, sounds cuter. Also it'll probably not be in Stella's cottage in its final location. Too fancy. But it'll be in there for now.

Tada! Added in a user interface and made everything look much nicer. It's almost done. Dropping down new gems works, adding points works, mechanically speaking everything works.

I just need to add buttons for "Send score" and "Exit," add a twinkling gem hint if the user hasn't made a selection in a while, add some audio effects, and some sparkly particle effects when a match it made. Basically just make it more exciting to play. I'm also lazy and decided it'll be like the classic untimed Bejeweled and just have a game over when there's no more matches.

It's been one year and one day since I made my first post on this blog. That first post was just three drawings of fruit trees. Since then, so much has been done — a 3D pony that walks around, interactable objects like fruit trees that have their fruits fall and bounce, basically an entire mini-game, the manifestation of a quirky NPC and her cottage, the beginnings of a town called Merryville, a bit of a user interface, an item editor that reads and exports XML, particle effects, the start of an inventory system, and so on.

I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished. It's been fun. I hope someday I can make a game that others can enjoy playing as much as I enjoy working on it.

Gemswap mini-game

I decided to work on a mini-game. It'll be a match-3, currently called Gemswap. I was trying to think of something that would fit in Stella's cottage, as it will be the first interior I do, but I was coming up blank. I decided match-3 games are decently fun.

A game within a game... but at least this game is much more do-able.

So far what I got working:

• Generates a random board
• The board generated does not have any matches right off the bat
• You can swap the gems around properly

What I'll need to work on:

• Removing matches and adding them to your score
• When a match is removed, the board is filled up again

I'm not sure if I want to do a game where the game is over when a timer runs out, or if I want to do one that ends when there is no more moves. 

After I determine that, I'd need to work on those specific tasks. And once that is complete, I can work on prettier gems, particle effects, a graphical interface, and other fancy stuff.

Item Editor

Haven't been working on any fun art or visual stuff lately. But I am learning how to use WPF to create an item editor.

It was pretty interesting setting this up. It doesn't look super great, but it gets the job done.

The next hard part for me will be to actually sync up the XML file generated by my item editor into Unity. Fingers crossed that it isn't too difficult.

What I want to accomplish:

• Get my items.xml working in Unity
• Get a working scene/game manager
• Create Stella Portabella's cottage interior
• Create one simple mini-game
• And lastly, once I complete all those tasks, maybe work on some networking. Dun dun dun