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The Breakdown

This week's post is gonna be a less taking about the game and how the game is going. I'm at the point in the project where I don't want to spoil too much more about the game, it's at a critical point, When the game goes from being a tech demo, to being a game. That's kinda of where I am. If I really wanted to I could probally polish it up a bit and shove it out the door, I'd be crap but I could do that. So in this post I wanted to give a bit of a break down of my progress.

As you can see below I the the main game systems are at about 85% complete. That remaining 15% is in making Project Honey in to a real fully playable game from start to end. At that point the game will offically be in alpha. That sound like there's a lot left but really I don't anticipate the Alpha Stage of Project Honey taking too long, at most a month or two I predict The best way to put it is the game will be in Beta when all those progress numbers are around 80% to 90%.

When the game is in the spit shining phase of production.

• Main Game Systems: 85% Complete
• Level Design: 60% Complete
• Scenerio and Script 10% Complete
• Character Art: 50% Complete
• Environment Art 0% Complete
• Sound and Music 5% Complete
• Animation: 20% Complete
• Visual Effects: 20% Complete

Main Game Systems

The most of my work over these past months has been in establishing key game systems. Level Loading, Character interactions, Menu and UI elements. The back end stuff that people don't really see when playing a game but feel or really feel when it's not working. The things I'm trying to figure out is what the player actually does in project honey AKA (The core game loop) That's the last bit. taking Super Mario 64/ Donkey Kong 64 for example the core game loop is collect Power Stars / Golden Bananas to unlock more levels to get more Power Stars/ Golden Bananas to unlock the final level and beat the final boss. For a game like Doom it's making your way to the end of every Level. For Grand Theft Auto it's Complete all missions.

Figuring this out is non-trivial, I could make it such that you have to make to then end of the level but the levels don't really have an end. What's the end of a level in SM64 or GTA 5. But not to worry, I'm not lost and have no Idea what to do, I think I've come up with a good Idea for Project Honey The main issue is that it requires me to rethink level structure. I've already done that once now I need to do it once more.That doesn't mean I have to throw away everything I've worked on so far it's just that I need to take the core loop in to account. I think I've come up with something that will work I just need to implement it and test it.

Level Design

This was an aspect of the game that really intimated me at first. This is really my first ever game with fully 3D levels. Not that I haven't made any 3D games before, but not Levels like this.

Project Honey's Game world so far.

The game world has water and islands, cliffs and caves. It has rivers and oceans and water falls, Hills and soon enough, Mountains. Project Honey's world won't be big by games of today's standards but I want it to feel big, to feel exploreable. To feel packed with stuff for the player. For scale, in the picture above, each one of those dark spots is a large tree about, 10 meters or 30 feet tall The area in green is the game's staring area. As you play more of the map will open up, introducing new obstacles, new enemies and new things to do (PUN VERY MUCH INTENDED!)

Honestly, The design process has been going quite smooth so far, I got a lot of ideas for level Features and locations. At first I was going to break the game up in to discrete levels but I decided making one big world would be better, maybe not easier but better for the game. I think this design will suit project honey well.

Scenario and Script

As far as story is concerned I don't have one yet, I've done almost no work on writing a script for the game, Not to say I don't have and Ideas, but the story I originally came up just doesn't work with the game as it currently is anymore. In fact I'm considering changing the main protagonist... And I really like Her!

Don't you think she's cute... I think she's cute.

For example, from day one I thought about making the game a Tales of Luka game. Issue was it didn't really fit the themes, Tales of Luka is suppose to be be full of Both Sex and Violence. Project Honey is gonna be all Sex all the time, sans the Violence. Tales of Luka is Just gonna be full of Gore, while I'm know some people would love that, that's just not what Project Honey is suppose to be. So maybe the game would just not have Luka as a main protagonist but it could take place in that world. The Luka's world is Big and varied and the main story of Tales of Luka takes place in a small part of that world... Maybe it could be Luka, or maybe not, MAYBE ZANSHI! point is I have opions and the design of the game now might fit Tales of Luka better, But I have other Ideas too.

Point is I don't really know anymore what the game's story will end up being, But it's possible it might not be Ursula's story anymore.... Or maybe Ursula could be a part of Tales of Luka...? I don't know really, I still have a lot to think about. Hell all this is just me thinking out loud, I'm rambling now so I'm gonna move on.

Character Art

I've said it before and I'll say it again none of my designs so far are final. But a lot of them are mostly Final. The main issue so far is I don't know what characters I will need to design since I don't have a story yet. Once I have a story settled upon I can get to work finishing up the characters. At that point I might have to redesign them all...We shall see.

Environment Art

Not gonna lie, I haven't made a single environmental asset that is specifically designed for Project Honey. I want to know exactly what I need before I start making anything, Things will be more efficient that way and If I need to say hire an artist to assist, I'll have a strict plan for them to follow. The last thing, I'd want to do is have some do a bunch of art for me just tell them to do something else instead.

Sound and Music

I have begun implementing placeholder sounds and voice samples, it's an important piece of the core Game Systems, for example I have a unique sound playing when the character walks on grass and one for rock and so on a so forth, UE4 doesn't have a built in system for things like that but it has all the tools for you to make one. The Music System is probably gonna end up being the last major game system I work on.

Animation

All the animations I have now I've had for a while now, much like Environmental art I want to know exaclty what I need before I really get started. For reasons that should be obvious by now, animation is a part I don't want to rush and is going to be vital to Project Honey.

Visual Effects

Much like Sound and Music I've started implementing rudimentary Visual effects, things such as water splashing or dirt being kicked up as you take a step. I don't for see this taking up too much time but there will be a good number of effects I will need to create and implement. But a good number of major things are already in place such as hair shading and water effects.

Summary

There are a lot of things I need to still do, but largely I know what those things are. I've found the major reason a project get's stalled, be that a game or a movie or anything really, is that no clear direction forward is ever established, Thats where I was a month or two back but now I'm begining to see the path forward much more clearly every day. So much so that I honeslty Think I can get things finished by the end of August, No promises, and please don't hold my feet to that fire, But I think it can be done.

And that's gonna be it for this week,

See ya'll again soon!