Phew made a major update to ARGH-P-G bringing it to version 2 with lots of enhancements and improvements. Although the downside a few more bugs / oversights to contend with again.

Check it out at liamtwose.itch.io/arghpg

Also written 2 articles surrounding character exploration for gamedevology.com:

How to give npc characters more character

Bridging the connection between player and character

The danger to taking breaks. Just broke my ARGH-P-G code after a small break :)

Need to rewrite certain elements anyway so no time like the present.

In better news, I officially launched Gamedevology.com to the game dev world today, with its own twitter account @gamedevology

So I've had a small break from any development to ensure I remain in total control of my workload, it's so easy to get wrapped up in a project so much that other things lose a little focus.

Highlights:

This week I attended a local game dev drinks night with some great developers in my area who I will now be sure to stay in regular contact with, made some great connections and the future is certainly looking a lot brighter,

I covered a game dev club teaching kids how to use Kahootz. A great experience.

I've also written a blog post for #gamedevology exploring how to give npc characters more character thus kicking off my first major topic of my new website Gamedevology.com exploring game development to get us all really thinking about the way we make games now and in the future in order to make better games.

Quite often when you're working on a game prototype, it's like wow this is so cool. Then you take a day off and go back to it and the fire seems to have gone out. Something changed.

As it happens, my awesome new movement system is no longer quite as awesome. Need to look at how to strip it back and present it in an informative yet subtle way. Think somewhere along the line I've over complicated it, which is where the magic was lost.

Really successful meeting this morning, hopefully should be starting teaching kids some time after April. Off to shadow a club very shortly. Exciting times!

Game dev wise I'm currently working on a new movement prototype for ARGH-P-G. If it continues as well as it is, I'll need to then decide if it will ultimately replace the current one or whether I'll put it in the 3d version. Replacing the original, would mean the dynamics of ARGH-P-G 2d would need to change.

Made a new game dev meme. Started exploring a movement system for a prototype I'm making in Unity3d. Speaking with a contact about a job teaching children how to make games. PLUS mapped out lots of topics of conversation and exploration into game design and dev for Gamedevology.com

Whilst yesterday I didn't get any physical game dev work done, I have however just launched my new specialist website, gamedevology.com, designed to provoke thought in game developers, open minds through thought, theory and research.

I also wrote a blog post with some tips on naming games

No unity yesterday as I spent a lot of time, bringing my 2d fast-paced dungeon crawler rpg named ARGH-P-G to the next base build version v1.150. Implementing 3 class types to choose from, each bringing their set of strengths, weaknesses and abilities to the mix.

Play the latest version on itchio

The aim currently is to bring it to a classic dungeon crawler stability and then to explore the other ideas I've had for it.

I'm very close to having a solid foundation to build upon, which exciting as then I can start to look at the real meat and substance of the project.

Next up I'm hoping to look into creating seeded dungeons and also to working on making play-throughs more of a progression.

@liamtwose

The last time I coded properly was a few years back now, following the discovery of tools like Construct 2 that make dev quicker, so diving into Unity3d has brought be back a few years.

Yesterday I figured out how to destroy an object after the sound (on the object) has finished, just need to work out a better way to work with audio. But for now it works, which is the most important thing.

The amount of times I've hit play mode only to lose all the changes I just made, is unreal, so I was very grateful for the advice given over twitter which taught me how to set the tint for playmode. Lifesaver!

Next stop, basic level random spawning here I come.

@liamtwose (LiamTwose.com)

So it would appear I missed my streak for the day. My new strategy is to submit my streak in the morning or afternoon so I don't forget on the evening. I'm not going to stress too much about maintaining a long streak as I love the tool for the simplicity it offers to track and motivate your progress in #gamedev.

Not a lot achieved yesterday and exploring Unity makes me feel like I've just gone back a few years in game development. This I guess is the downside to having shifted from full coding to wysiwyg style game dev back to a heavy mix of both, with lashings of 3d thrown in.

The last time I coded in 3d was with Blitz 3d which was quite a few years back.

So, decided its time to dig out the courses, to pick out relevant parts, that I bought on Udemy to fast-track my learning. Going to aim to get a handle on it in 30 days, as yesterday I spent an evening getting audio to work only to struggle working out how to destroy an object when the sound was complete or even continue playing the sound even after the object has been destroyed.

@liamtwose

So following judging and rallying the troops at my local global game jam event, hah crazy that. I bit the bullet and downloaded Unity3d on recommendation of a friend and fellow game developer.

I've put off using it for too long, and managed this evening to get an understanding of how collisions work and importing and placing assets into the world as objects (some of which can be collected)

Next I need to work out how to block the player from passing through certain objects.

Luckily I have people to call on should I need a hand and also a mountain of unity3d courses I purchased through udemy :D

Bring it on. I can feel the true #gamedev blood flowing through my veins again. Although using a new dev tool after so long almost makes it feel like I'm back to square one.

30 days to get up to speed I reckon. #30daydev!