Game Journal #102 - Level Progression, Animations, Future Mac Port

Hey all! Welcome back to my game journal series. There's been quite a few developments lately, so keep reading!

Firstly, I bought a Mac. This is so I can have a Mac version of the game available to download. Interestingly enough, I was planning on adding a Mac port sometime in the future, but I didn't think anyone would be interested so I forgot all about it. Then recently I was asked, "How do I run this on a Mac?" and remembered that I'd wanted to make it. Lol. However, I had no idea that in order to make a Mac port, you have to compile the project on a Mac... which I didn't own. So I finally got one on Prime Day since it was on sale. It arrived today, and I set it up. Now I officially have two computer work areas.

...Yeah, that air conditioner is built into the wall. The previous owner of my house did it. I don't mind it too much, but I'm not looking forward to replacing it. Oh well. Anyway, the next build will also have the first official Mac port, so look forward to it if you're a Mac user. And small side note: I got the monitor and keyboard from the thrift store for 40$ total. Yeah, really! I love the secondhand culture here, there's literally a thrift store on every block. It also helps that most of the population is older, so I can get a lot of tech stuff for a good price due to the low demand. New Jersey could never. They're too busy giving out a yearly 150$ surcharge for having 6 points on your driver's license despite that license not being valid anymore because you moved. Yes, I am extremely salty about it, yes I know that it's the ONLY state to have such a system, and yes I am pissed because I'm being charged for a speeding ticket from three years ago that I already paid. Curse NJ and making you drive on the highway and then putting a cop every thirty miles. Literally tax hell.

Ok, on to the game stuff. I added quite a bit this week, mostly the dialogue for the first chapter of the story. I'm already halfway done with it, so that's encouraging. However, a new build likely won't be out until the end of next month. This is because the build needs to be user-friendly, as in not having a bunch of dev tools laying around. Because of that, I'll need to make some more 3D models before the build can be released. Don't worry, if it's environmental stuff I can do it rather quickly.

I also added a running animation for Joe and Dan. I realized that I needed one with the size of the map, so I finally added it in. I DID attempt to animate it myself, but the result was so bad that I ended up downloading a royalty free one from Mixamo. Don't worry though, I'll still make a majority of the animations myself. It's just... well, animating legs running is pretty hard in 3D.

I made sure to give Joe and Dan not only different running animations, but running speeds as well. I'm thinking that speed transfers over to the overworld, too. So Dan has higher speed than Joe, and he can run faster. That makes sense, right? I think it'll make changing characters a little more interesting. Of course, no matter who you choose in the overworld the game is still from Joe's point of view.

Other than that, it was mostly working on the story mechanics. The game is linear, meaning that the player has to do things in a certain order, so preventing progress in certain areas is important. I've pretty much got that down, so now all that's left is to put in the rest of the content. Hooray!

Here's the video of me going over everything. It's a bit longer than usual.