First of all I had to pull out my last saved version of the Goldroids project files. I had reinstalled Parallels Desktop a few times since last session, so I started digging through my iCloud Backup drive to retrieve the files. Apparently, I never backed up my latest version of Goldroids, so a lot of the changes I'd done after my restart, was gone - forever. In the end, I did find a backup of the first version after the restart, but unfortunately a lot of the changes I'd incorporated was missing.

A few evening sessions later and I was finally ready to start where I left off. More or less. The only thing "remaining" was to get a quick overview of what changes I had originally planned for the second phase of this project. After some brainstorming, and discovering these old Diary of a Game posts, I was good to go. The main areas of change was as follows:

Game Restructuring/Use of Include files

Right now (previous version of Goldroids) I set up and initialized everything in the Level Layout. This is fine if you only have one level, but once you add another 35 levels (the current plan) and needs to go back and change one little thing, you'd end up changing the same thing in all of the 36 Level Layouts. So, I'm setting up several Include files which will control certain events/actions/set ups/initialization, etc. These will then be included in the Level Layouts as required.

In the end I want each Level Layout to only contain the tilemap for that specific level. Everything else will be initialized/set up in the different include files attached to each Layout. So much easier to do changes in events/actions this way.

I've completed all the changes so far in the project, but there will be a lot more to come, trying to get my head around everything. (Probably the main reason for this post in the Game Diary)

Game Control Variables

Similar as previous area, I will probably have all the Global Variables in one Include file for easy access when developing, and not having to set them up in each Level Layout as before.

Game Concept

Funny how things - and plans - change over time, specially while you're developing something. Originally I planned for Goldroids to be set inside a gold mine in a huge mountain, but the player/enemy sprites I made - alien UFO's - didn't really fit in this environment. So Goldroids is now set in space. On board a huge mining space ship. Your mission is to steal as much gold as possible whilst fighting off the space ships security Droids. You pick up gold while manouvering the different levels and you'll get an extra change for a huge loot in the Boss level between every section of the Space Ship. There will also - eventually - be a boss Droid to kill in order to proceed to the next section.

Level Structure/Design

The big question is how many levelsI  should have in this game? Hard to put down an exact number, but I think I came up with a cunning sollution. The Mining Space Ship will be divided in sections. 6 should do. These will have different colour schemes and the difficulty will be slightly harder for each section. Each section contains 5 levels with a special Boss level in the end that needs to be beaten in order to proceed to next section. It looks like I will end up with (6 x 5) + 6 = 36 levels. The only thing I haven't decided on yet is if the last Boss Level will be a special "escape" level.

Quick test of the new Level Structure below... PS! The lack of playability is not a bug, rather a feature, in this version... Jump through the levels by hitting ENTER :)

https://www.beedesign.no/Games/Goldroidsv0.2.4/

While brainstorming the above changes, I got bored and got out some pen and paper. The jury is still out on wheter or not this will be a beedesign or an Absence of Mind Production, so I did a few quick doodles for both options. To be re-done in Photoshop next time I get bored. Colours/Gradients, etc is not finalized yet - by a long shot. I only had a pencil and a blue/red pen available at the time.

PS! I also made a complete sprite font of the "PRESS SPACE TO PLAY" text on the Startscreen. I figured it will possibly save some space and I will have more options using the same font in other menues/dialog boxes (without having to draw a logo in Photoshop every time needed)




I recently read Steve Turner's Graftgold blog where he talked a bit about planning your code and using old school Pseudo coding... So, I decided to follow the master and have a go myself. Excuse my handwriting, it was done during a 10 minute toilet break - I am at work these days, after all :)