Devlog "Haunted Hunting Jam"

Introduction:

This game is being developed for the 4-week "Haunted Hunting Jam". I've just finished the Stay Safe game jam and BÄM, the next game jam intrigued me :) I started one week after the jam has launched and I wasn't sure if the theme is within my interest. A horror / hunting / FPS game? Sounded like it might require a lot of 3d Models or even worse 2D Pixel Art. BUT: In the end, I think I will managed to have a really nice game done.  I have learned SO MUCH aleady in this jam (character animation, Post Processing, Camera animation). I am really proud of my work so far, any feedback can be posted on the game's site when it is completed.

Below is a loooong  devlog/post mortem (where is the line between devlog and postmortem anyway? Isn't any post portem also a devlog?) of the Haunted Hunting Jam. I am not officially done with the game and it is still under development, but having this devlog helps me track progress and remember things I want to improve next time:

Day 1:

• The first evening was all about brainstorming; I didn't want to go for the "obvious" game ideas such as a FPS where you shoot Zombies, or where you are trapped in a lonely hut being hunted or hunting yourself. That made it more tricky, but I did want to find something "unique" that might give me an advantage when competing with people who have loads of assets ready and animated
• I tried to find synonyms for "hunting" or "hunter" and was hoping to find some good words that guide me but after 2hrs I was not really progressing on the idea generation phase
• While brushing teeth, I had an initial idea that I liked: What if you are a hunter that gets hunted himself and gets stuck in a haunted world, exploring why he is stuck there...That was my bright moment and I decided to go with that broad idea. However, there were no ideas yet on what fun game elements I want (do I want to collect points, or is it a fighing game?)

Day 2:

• THE DREADED character animation and rigging. Oh lord, this was a nightmare. 4hours of youtube tutorials later, 10 scratched 3d modelling attempts later I had a decent looking Fox, who would represent the main character. I was almost tempted to scratch the modelling and use a FPS camera instead so I could avoid the painful process of creating a character from a 3d cube. Luckily, I kept going HELL YEAH!

Day 3:

• I build on my idea of a haunted world and had the idea to use a Shader to make my Fox transparent and shiny at the same time (so it looks like a ghost). After 3hours, lots of tutorials and try-and-error it just looked poor. My original idea was a Shader that uses a noise that shifts over time to create a "floating" character, but it really really REALLY looked horrible. I am actually ashamed how poor it looked. Thankfully, I did not save any screenshot of that.

Day 4:

• After yesterday's Shader fiasco, I tried a new approach for the ghost fox: A transparent material from the asset store. I was really happy (for now) 
• Roughly 2 hours to model a terrain in Blender, happy with the result. A decent looking low poly environment:

Day 5:

• Tried to learn Riggify to get a better animation of the fox. Result is OKAY, not amazing but better than before. Speed of walking and animation speed does not yet match, but for now I am happy!
• Started working on some other Blender assets, e.g. Tomatoes, A farmer, windmill and waterwell - exhausting

Day 6:

• I've had a decent FPS-controller from another project that I initially used; but it did not really scale well with the offset camera (it is now a third person perspective not FPS). After few hours of youtube search, I've combined two scripts into one good script. Really happy that the new control script allows rotating the camera, which allows for nicer look&feel
• Now the fox is stuck when walking, but not when running. There is no reason why.  WHY? I have no clue

Day 7:

• The fox can move around, improved terrain imported, but there is no fun anywhere yet. It is just a boring looking low poly landscape. That frightens me. Should I have thought about the FUN part first and all the mechanics? Did I skip a few steps? Seems like it. Time for inspiration, firing up youtube and watching some BlackthornProd and Brackeys for inspiration
• Then I've hit a gold nugget inspiration: POST PROCESSING! Why not use a nice looking post processing effect for the ghost fox? That could be a good replacement for the horrible shader idea and the boring looking transparent material (see below for reference)! HOORAY! 

Day 8:

• Working on my core issue of not having fun in the game: Played around the idea of NavMesh agents (such as chickens and angry farmers) that try to chase you. Found a nice script that allows chickens to escape the fox
• Animation on the woodchopper (costs sooo much time. Holy cow, I should really only have 1 fully animated character per game, everything else is too time demanding)

Day 9:

• By now I am AMAZED by Post Processing. It's all I want to do all day long. Oh wait - I actually did play around all of Saturday digging into Post Processing tutorials
• I might have overdone it with the effects and bloom, but you only life once :)
• By now I also advanced the overall game idea: You, a ghost fox, are trapped in a haunted, mysterious world, trying to find out where you are and why you are here. Through 4-5 objects/clues you trigger text boxes that refresh your memery...
• Found an amazing font. After last jam's issues, I remembered to only use fonts, where numbers are also included :D

Day 10:

• Got distracted in the morning: My  "coffee and youtube" session led me to a blender turorial for a "melting effect". This sparked the idea of having a melted ghost chicken in my game ("I am the haunted chicken, you ate me, now I am deformed and haunt you!"). Pretty easy to accomplish, will certainly add more melted characters in the future!
• Brackeys - once again - sparked inspiration: Got the idea to use a video sequence / cinematics as intro & outro: You see the fox being shot (camera animated, moving towards the fox), fox is dead, load the actual haunted level where you play, outro. SO HAPPY about it! I've never done that before and it really really really looks OKAY! 

Day 11:

• I faced my coding fears: Accessing variables from another script. I've tried this before in the last jam and I never made it work. Few hours of trial-and-error, a help request on the unity forum and a few coffees later, I GOT IT! Each time you enter one of the trigger areas, a Bool is set true. If all 4 Bools are true, the outro sequence is being played, and the game is over
• I also want to say that I am now the self-declared MASTER of co-routines! I actually got it working without too much hassle. I added the co-routines of waiting 10seconds after the text boxes from the triggers are set active. Really nice!
• One hour before bedtime, I was exhausted and could only do "dull" actions: Working on menu, tutorial scene, credits scene and quit button 

Day 12:

• Got in contact with a nice guy who will do the acoustic parts (music, sound effects) of the game. 
• 12 things are still open on my to-do list. I have 2 weeks left which is plenty. But I also want to finish in the next 4 days, right after Easter, so I can relax a few days before the Ludum Dare begins. And I REALLY need a few unity-free days or my wife is killing me. And my brain. 

This is the final night/haunted scene with crazy amounts of Post Processing effects. I like the combination of transparency and dark ambience.

Day 13:

• I really don't feel like working on it AT ALL after the past 12 days of intensive work.
• I think I will call the game title "Afterlife"
• Instead, I decided to search youtube for "top 15 exploration games" to see if I can get some inspiration for spicing up my own game. Update: No, didn't help. Most games demonstrate the following characteristics: Open World (don't have that one), Quests (I do have that one but very limited), crafting (don't have that one either), new kind of environment (I do have that one, it is unique in a way), note to myself: Check out the game Eastshade - it looks beautiful! They are usually not linear, e.g. you can chose what you want to do, quests, shoot, craft, etc. (don't have that either)
• I am starting to think that I can build up on this game jam's product and make it a large world exploration game with elements of hunting, eating, sleeping, almost like a fox survival game while also exploring the haunted open world? It does seem like a lot of work though :D so let's see what the feedback from the other jammers are 

Day 14:

• I added two optional exploration areas (chicken bones and graveyard) to improve the overall open world exploration feeling
• I added visual help for the player: A overlay showing the objective (find the 4 haunted memories) which turn white, when you find them. It's best not to rely on the player having checked out the tutorial. That way, it guides the player and visually helps keeping track of the objective (the code is sloppy though, should have included it in the existing gamemanager script, but meh)
• Added a sheep in the intro scene

I took 4 days break and did not work on the project for those days. I've added a few minor improvements, such as smoother outro scene, automatic switch to Menu after the outer and removing the text box after 10 sec in the outro. I consider the GAME DONE! Except of course the music where I wait for my Argentinian friend to provide it in the next days!

Now it's fingers crossed for a good game jam score :)