Deer Flipper

There is still months of work ahead, but I’m marking this challenge as complete now!

That’s the end of the DK30! The originally plan was to create 10 levels a week and do something a bit extra each week.

The first week’s extra task was to boost Deer Flipper’s social media presence. After developing that more, I realised that 10 levels a week isn’t actually the most important thing, and switched the goals. Social media presence was a task that took work every single day.

In the second week I set up the website and started the process for the Steam Page, which is still in the works due to COVID-19. I felt that I needed a bit more of a community aspect in the game to help gain an audience, so I tasked myself with creating a level editor. I managed to convert levels to minified JSON and back again, and level editor progress.

Week 3 was finishing off the level editor and starting the first boss fight, although ultimately the level editor still needs a lot of work, and will need to expand as more of the game is made. It was a huge task, but I’m happy that I finished the concept of it. Boosting the mailing list was a failure, I managed to gain 6 subscribers in the last few weeks.

Week 4 was finishing off the first boss fight, and it was a lot more work than anticipated. I’m happy that it’s somewhat complete, however I’ve been adding more polish to it and will continue to add more going forwards. I also implemented sounds, commissioned a voice actor, and I’m also waiting on boss fight music for this. As a result of the boss fight, there have been several additional game mechanics that will go into the game as well. A demo is very close, but I don’t want to release without the boss music, extra UI, and polish.

In conclusion a few goals weren’t met but the workload evolved over the last month and a lot has been created. The social media boosting has done very well:

Every day has been spent on Deer Flipper, so my next target will be to bring out the demo and have a brief break.

Thanks for reading!

Necro Deer boss progress, still need to put in it’s death animation and polish things up a bit. Sound effects and voice in too.

Just need to code things in and this boss should be done! The Steam page won’t be done because of Covid and admin stuff out of my control. The level editor is hopeful by the 24th, and the demo maybe a couple of days later.

Boss fight progress, lots still to do:

More animation for the Necrodeer, will soon be time to code him up.

Some marketing and business stuff has been happening, and there’s a lot of pressure developing around the end of May for this, so let’s hope it all goes well!

The first boss is in development: The Necrodeer!

Gotta design more UI stuff, setting directions, and probably the ability to set gate logic from the switches as well as vice-versa. But that can all wait.

So much code, so many prefabs and object and sprites… I just have the logic between gates and switches now, but it feels very close to unlocking almost everything at once and being complete.

Bit more on the Level Editor! I’m liking the UI of it now, and the start of the object placement logic is in.

I’ve reshaped the project’s goals. Originally it was to do 10 levels per week with some extras, but the extras have become priority. I’ve spent time on the project every day and feel like this is the best way forwards. This next week I hope to finish the Level Editor and get started on the first Boss Fight. Steam has also been a bit of a pain to set up and I’m waiting for things outside of my control, but I will aim to have the content ready to go for the Steam page and demo at the end of Week 4. So let’s see!

Also had a little commission done of Deerdre. It won’t be in the game, just nice to have some extra art.

Level editor progress! Need more objects in there now, some shadow fixes, and a UI overhaul.

Finalised the conversion of level set up along with switches and what they’re joined to into JSON, and can now load them up and draw the level. Can also give it a rotation to draw with! Finally, the shadows are now automated instead of hand-placed.

And here’s the level in JSON =D

Did a lot of generating objects and giving their properties values from an import, but then took a break and did some work on the primary antagonist - Deerdre!

Got the rotation of the grid down and almost through the redrawing of the tiles, but I missed something important: Shadows can’t rotate! They were placed manually, and when rotated are no longer the right sprites for that rotation, nor where the shadows should be relative to the walls. Now I’ll have to remove them place them programatically…

Got the Press Kit up on my site, just need to populate it with more data, but that can sit there for now.

Reviewing marketing and game design videos I thought about something to help build audience as well as to solve a problem I’m approaching. The problem is that I initially built the game vertically to go on a website for a game jam, but games are horizontal unless they’re on mobiles! So I need to convert the levels depending on the platform, and I need something creative to bring people in. You know what that means right?

LEVEL EDITOR TIIIIIME

I’ve implemented level “reading” so far, grabbing prefab co-ordinates and limited variable data on them. The next step is to “write” them back onto a scene.

Once that’s done I could rotate levels or flip them if I really wanted to, as well as have a base to start proper user customisation.

I worked towards setting up Steam, setting up the company, the mail list, and the site! I’ve accomplished a lot more than I expected this week, even if I only got 5/10 levels made. I think I’ll probably continue the social media goal into the other weeks and reduce the level targets. https://deerflipper.com

With the implementation of flippable objects you can move the lantern to allow for all sorts of new puzzles. I’ve made a couple more levels but I’m still off my target of 10. On the other hand I’ve done a lot more business end of things, and am working towards a Steam Page.

Developed the mechanic of Spooky Deer passing through objects unless they’re under lantern light. They can also be flipped onto switches in this state. I’ve spent a fair bit of time this week on art, promo, and mechanics, but not as many levels as I’d like! Hopefully I can finish the lanterns and Spooky Deer then get more 9/10 more levels developed!

Not much development progress today as I’ve been focusing on social media presence instead! I’ve registered to a game industry event and in the form it wanted a website which I didn’t have yet. So I’ve been rushing to get a basic one set up for that. You can see it over here https://deerflipper.com

Finished the animations for Spooky Deer and put it in the game, now to work on it’s mechanics more. Here’s the Deer, Bomb-ba-deer, and Spooky Deer types getting flipped:

Developed a new enemy type - the Spooky Ghost Deer. It’ll be able to go through walls, only be flipped at certain times, etc. It will open up new mechanics and therefore more levels, and will be the start of a new level theme!

Made some progress on my title screen / cover art for the game. It’ll be an overarching goal for the project, and very large to allow me to move layers around and resize for any occasion.