Weird Struggle Game Development (DevLog) Journal #001

Introducing the project

Since about 1991, I have been a fan of fighting games, starting with Street Fighter II.  And now, I’ve had an idea in my head for a few years.  It is a fighting game inspired by a few short stories I’ve read.  [As you follow the devlog, see if you can figure out which stories.] I figured that now is a good time to finally start building a playable demo with my own original artwork.  I am calling my game “Weird Struggle”.  By the way: I never noticed until recently how tough it is to get the spelling of “weird” correct.

Scope

I picked five of my character ideas to build up for this year’s demo.  If I keep the move set small, this should all be feasible for an independent hobbyist to complete. I think 2 different battle arena stages would be sufficient, too.  I could fall back to only one stage if time runs out. 

I envision supporting online play eventually, but I don’t think it’s feasible to work that in during this season.  I’ll save that for the next season, after this demo is fully completed and delivered.  That leaves “couch versus” (two human players on the same device with Bluetooth gamepads) and player-versus-CPU modes to develop and test for this season.

Timeframe

I aim for something playable by June 20, 2024.  I want a decent-sized, fully playable demo by October 31, 2024.  I’m calling this timeframe “Spooky Summer”.

Rough Plan

This first devlog entry is to introduce the project and show a quick video.  In a future post, I’ll share what makes the fighting mechanics unique in this project.

The plan is not too rigorous yet, but I’ll need to write out the plan soon.  For now, my intention is to bounce between working on art assets and making something playable in Unity.  This will be accomplished using greybox levels, stand-in models/animations from mixamo, etc.  I should put a deadline on the plan, even if it’s a naïve first pass: so, let’s say February 26th to have the plan written out.

Art Assets

At the time of writing, I have ideas in my head; some names written in a notepad; and one or two rough concept art sketches.  I’ll wait for the next entry to show any concept art.  For now, I am using models and animations from mixamo.com.  But I intend to build up the following while simultaneously developing the game engine in Unity:

• Concept Art

• Blender models and stand-in materials

  • Sculpting as appropriate

  • Low-poly retopologies

• Substance Painter texture maps

  • High-to-low-poly baking

• Blender animations

Once I start sharing art assets, I’ll save them in a google drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hCW8zb3zgJBwp5ZyntCj0WYX9CxhFlvN

I’d like for the game development to not be tied up by waiting for the art assets.  I also need to not neglect the art assets while working on the game demo.  I intend to introduce art assets gradually and constantly.

Code Assets

Unity uses C# class files which it refers to as “scripts”.  I am storing these at:

https://github.com/bigmekben/WeirdStruggle

Progress so far

I set up a Unity project with the following:

·         A generic arena

·         Two stand-in models (from mixamo) for contestant fighters

·         Boxing animations from mixamo

·         Some lighting, for the practice

·         An animation state machine, to build upon later for the fighting logic

·         A C# script to make the fighters choose random moves for today’s purposes

Demo

Here is a video of the work so far in Unity:

What you see is the C# script randomly picking a state for each fighter.  Then, the animator controller has a state machine that moves between the different animations.  There is no player control yet, but that should be soon.

Conclusion

It was fun to set up the animation controller and work up a mock lighting setup.  The animations aren’t exactly the way I want, so I have to constantly remind myself that they are only stand-ins until I get to the point of making my own animations.  The stand-in models aren’t bad, but the game will take on its intended charm once I start building and inserting my original models in to the demo.

I intend to put itch.io links once there is something playable.  I’d like to do this before June 20, but realistically, it might not be anytime soon.  When those are available, I’ll link to them from a devlog entry.