Dev log 1

Well here is my first dev log for WW1 - No Man's Land! Not much to show right now, but besides just talking about what I have completed so far, I am also planning to include code snippets to explain how I programmed some aspects of the game, in hopes of helping other fellow game devs or even getting pointers for improvement! So look out for these as well. Anyways, let's get started with dev log 1!

Programming: 

So far, I have managed to get a prototype version of what the troop selection system may look like. I am still trying to solidify the mechanism used to demonstrate what actions the player has set for each troop. Getting this right is important so that players can review their moves before confirming them (and potentially cancel to modify them prior to launching the attack). Right now, the moves the player has assigned to each troop are demonstrated in an iterative manner, though I think what will make it less confusing is if I make the demonstrators play only when the player is hovering over a troop that has been given an action to perform, this way they only see the action on the troop they want to see it for, rather than having to wait for all troops to demonstrate their actions before finally getting to see the one they want to. Below is a video showing the current progress on this movement mechanic. Note that all of the art shown is placeholder as well. 

Tomorrow, I am planning to make that change I mentioned above, along with these 2 additions: 

1. Allow users to confirm all their assigned moves, so that all the troops can finally move up and perform the attack together. 
2. Allow users to cancel moves they have assigned so that they may modify their strategy. This cancellation will only be allowed though if the player has not yet confirmed all their actions.

Early artwork: 

I do not really have much in terms of new graphics to show, but here is some of the art I created for the physical board game version of this project (which is also on my main page): 

These are what the troop pieces looked like in the board game. There were British and German forces. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the french troop pieces made, but I will make sure to do so for the computer game version! 

This is what the cards looked like, separated into a lethal and non lethal category. It is going to be interesting programming the behaviors of each of these in the computer game version! Especially the grenade toss and step on mines one (going to be super fun drawing the explosion effect!)

And of course, I can't have the board game without the board itself. The in game version will have a similar perspective, though it will be pixel art and make use of Unity's tilemap systems along with some cool shaders to spice things up a bit more!