Devlog #7: Giving Everyone Guns and Bullets (Part 1)

Honestly, I was intending to make something similar to a space shooter, where enemies come in from off-screen, but I’m still happy with what I ended up making.

This devlog is a bit longer than usual, so feel free to just simply look at the video for explanation if you’re running short on time.

Guns for the Player

Starting with the player, remember how I wanted to make a mechanic that doesn’t just involve enemies? I ended up coming up with giving the player a gun (or, well, a blaster).

I planned out the different types of guns the player will be able to equip. There will be two types of guns: auto-firing, which will automatically fire bullets every 0.2 seconds, and manual, which will only fire when the player presses a certain button, but it deals more damage per bullet (there’s a longer cooldown in between bullets, though, so better be precise). There are also three variants for each type that determine which direction the gun can fire: upwards, downwards, or horizontally. I may plan out more variants later. (But of course, this game isn’t all about guns, is it?)

I implemented the auto-firing horizontal gun at the time of writing this devlog. And for the first time ever, I finally decided to make my own art instead of just using CC0 assets from Pixel Adventure. (Wild, right?) Not the best, but it’ll work for now. I don’t want to spend too much time on all the minor details to the point where I barely get anything done (like the settings menu, cough cough [refer to devlog 6 if you’re new here]).

Guns for the Enemies

It would be unfair if the player just simply had a significant advantage over the enemies, so I also gave guns to the enemies. Well, only a certain type of enemy, that is…

Meet the Trunkwalker, a walking, square-like tree trunk part that fires bullets through its nose (aka the remains of a sliced tree branch). It can only fire a bullet horizontally every 3/2/1.5/1 second(s) depending on the difficulty (Hard/Extra Hard/Ultra Hard/Extreme). They also move around until they hit a wall, just like snails and mushrooms.

I do find myself dying more to when they stop to shoot bullets rather than the bullets themselves. A bit concerning, but I find that it adds to the difficulty well, so…

Basic Damage and Health System

Anyways, there’s a reason why the player has a gun in the first place. To defeat enemies, of course.

I gave the Trunkwalker a set amount of 25/30/35/40 health based on the difficulty. A bullet from an auto-firing gun deals 4 damage, so each Trunkwalker can be defeated after taking 7/8/9/10 hits. (There, I did the math for you. Happy?)

Minor Details and Changes

There’s still plenty to go around here. Here’s the rest of the changes:

• Reorganized folder structure, organized assets and scenes into subfolders
• Added a sound effect for when the enemy get hit by a bullet (made by tapping my laptop)
• Added extra frames to the mushroom’s death animation (they disappear in a similar fashion to collected fruits)

Upcoming Additions

I’ll have to continue all of this work in part 2. In other words, I’ll also have to make the other variants of guns, along with some more mechanics/enemies and levels. I also feel like the levels are too short and easy and don’t provide a proper challenge, mainly for the harder difficulties, so I might consider rebalancing the levels.

Things are looking much better than last time. School is starting soon, however, so I may start to slow down on progress. I still think I can get the game’s demo done before Stardance ends, though. Until next time, jumpers! (And yes, I just recently came up with that name. I don’t know what else to call players without calling them “players”.)