The game is actually playable at this stage now. I am very happy.

So, on Monday, me and James decided to create the AI for the game. We started off with the movement AI.

With the movement AI, there were different states it will be in depending on how much health they have. If they have more health, they will be more aggressive, and if they have low health, they will be running away more. So, we were able to implement these states so that the AI feels more realistic. Even if they are on low health, they will not always run away. I am very happy that this system was created. With the actual movement itself, we have it either moving towards the closest player and away from them. Nothing too complex.

We then decided to create the AI for the shooting, as well as the shooting for the player. Since it is purely just stats, we implemented the same lock on system, but with the enemies and changed the health points of them. We also have accuracy as a stat, so the player may miss their shot. This is also the same for the AI. Even if they are running away, they will shoot if in range. They can also miss their shot.

At this point, there is a game. I am ecstatic.

My task now is to translate the skills into an excel document, as well as write up how the code works, and what each part does on my blog. I have a lot to do and am happy to do them.

Tuesday, me and Sean did quite a bit of skill works.

So, I needed his help with filling out the excel spreadsheet for the skills, since he was the one that was designing them. The first thing we did was just start writing them down, the name and the effects. However, this proved more complex since some of the skills could break the game.

So, we then decided the base stats of each species, which took a very long time. We had to consider what the player may do, and whether there is a limit to some of the stats. For example, there has to be a limit to how far a character can move in one turn. We were able to create the base stats, after a lot of time… Each species have different base stats.

We then sort of redesigned the skill tree a bit, still having the base concept within it. With the skill tree, the player will be able to spec into one of the 6 types of classes, which will increase the players stat permanently. Once you have invested a certain amount of points into said class, that character will obtain the skills. Once they have fully spec that one tree, they will have some left over points to use for the others stats. However they will not have enough points to get skills from the other classes. This way, the character can still get more points into the other stats.

After all of this was done, we decided on range and damage numbers for each of the weapons. We based this on the information from before, using the character stats. This did not take as much time as the other parts.

Finally, we got back to the main task of writing up the skills. We had to translate the skills into numbers and stats, how they affect everyone. This was not too difficult to do, although we had to change quite a bit of effects since we have not implemented any status effects into the game. I think it should be easy to implement these status affects, but for now, we decided to just keep it simple.

In the end, we decided on having 12 skills in total, all with different effects. This will keep the game interesting, and the skills themselves are quite fun.

Wednesday, I decided to write up how the code works for the character movement script and the turn manager. It was not as difficult as expected, since I was actually listening to what James was saying. Hopefully I am actually writing it out properly.

Well, looks like I decided to just write up all the scripts on Wednesday night. Great! Well done me! what do I do now…

So, Friday. I have been tasked to do some 2D art for the icons of the skills. Pretty much, just create loads of initial sketches for each skill, and just send it to Olivia. It was quite refreshing, since I have only been doing coding. I was able to create 5 different sketches for each skill, so I am going to post it on Trello.

For the weekend, I am going to write up my research onto my blog, as well as my prototyping. After these things have been done, I will then start my research on how to create a skill tree.

Well, this week started off really productive. Insanely productive… A lot better than last week…

So Monday, I was with James for pretty much the whole day, working on the code for the battle system. We started on creating the grid based movement, until I overheard that it may change. It did change to just a point and click movement, which does make things a lot more easier.

We then focused on creating the new movement, which involves the NavMesh. We then was able to add in the point and click function. After that, we added in stats which the we can change and limit the movement of the characters. We were able to represent this using a sphere. This also includes the characters health.

After that was done, we then made it so that the player must click on the character they want to move first then move them. Once that was done, we finally added in the lock in/confirm system, so that once the player makes all the decisions for all the characters, they click the button and they all move at the same time.

Visuals were used to showcase what the player was doing, for example red was for non selected characters, green were selected characters and blue were characters which has a decision made. This way the player will know who is performing and action.

The last thing we did was include the turn based mechanic. All we did was add a button that switches the phases from one to the next and continues to loop around.

This was a very successful day.

For the next few days, I was unable to access the Unity file from home. I felt very useless… So, during that time, I was trying to refine the rules a bit for the game, making sure it works for the game.

I have decided that during the weekend, I will go back to prototyping the shop system and experimenting with the system. Since I already have started making a prototype before, I am just going to refine it and make it look nicer and work.

This week, I have been focusing on designing the state machines and how the each states will work.

Since the state machines were quite easy to create, I was able to design it for the three phases of the battle. Once it was done, I was told to design a flow chart of sorts of how the battle system will work. Since I already designed a version of this before, I just had to refine it and make the remaining 2 other phases.

I also watched a view various videos on Unity, and how I could potentially add it to our game. For example, I looked at light probes and how they work. It was super interesting. So yeah, I just looked at random things that could be implemented.

Honestly, this week I did not do much. There were a lot of things on my mind and a lot of things outside of work that I had to do. Hopefully next week I can be more productive than now.

Monday was a big day. It was pretty much about the project scope and time management. As in, how long will this certain task take to be completed. Everyone in the group had roles which they must complete within this time frame so we don’t go over the deadline.

For me specifically, I must complete the battle code in 4 weeks. For this, I started researching into NavMesh and turn based combat. The main problem which I am facing is how to turn the NavMesh into a grid based system. Since I have pretty much decided on using the NavMesh, I then started some research into the turn based mechanic.

I watched many videos on different ways to make the turn based system. The main problem was that the game is a simultaneous turn based game, while many of the tutorials online are for one at a time. Honestly, I watched so many videos on how it could work, and I am stumped. This also includes the grid based movement using a NavMesh.

After some discussion on the mechanics, we have decided that we are not using a grid based movement system, but just a point and click, where the character just walks there. This makes my job a whole lot easier.

I went to James to talk about the coding of the game and was told to slow down and start with the pseudo code first. So, how the turns would work like, in steps. I have to make this for all 3 phases of the battle. Sounds simple enough, took me longer than expected.

After designing the steps, comes the state machines for the AI. This is for how the AI will react and work. I started making a state machine only for phase 1. This is very difficult. I wanted the AI to change its priority depending on how much health they have, so there would be multiple state machines to create.

The four states the AI will be in is

• Aggressive
• Attack
• Defensive
• Flee

Went to uni to discuss stuff, and found out the state machines I created were not correct. So, I was shown how a state machine should look like, and it was a lot more simpler than I expected. I have all 4 states on the flow chart depending on how much health the AI has, which will influence the percentage chances on the actions they will choose. This means I just have to create like 3 state machines, I think.