November 24th: Development Restart, Phase 1

Hello. After a long while, I'm here again with the game. As you read by the title, the development on the old Cyberstorm game has been restarted. A new name has been chosen, and it's called BLUE STORM.

A completely redone game, with new missions and a different approach to things I did in the past project.

For now, I'm developing the mission script and the story script, before jumping into the project itself. I think that, at the beginning of december, I'll start work on the game itself. Will be updating this blog with more content.

At this point, according to my mission spreadsheet, I have 16 missions written. Will share more as I do.

The AI Director will return in this new project, but better done.

February 25th, 2020: Not much progress on missions

Hello again.
Well, today, I haven't been able to make much progress on the main missions, so, I did the following:
-Started implementing schedules for one character as of yet using the AI Director system(see yesterday's post for more info);
-Adjusted the time system to skip six hours(from 0h to 6AM) in the beginning of the game;
-Implemented sleep to skip six hours, so you can get to stores when they are open;
-Tuned some character descriptions and room descriptions;
-Changed things around;
-Organized the project.

That's all for now, I'm toying with the idea of advancing to the next arc, and once I have more ideas, come back to the first one.

February 23rd, 2020: Mission Cuts + AI Fiddling

Hello again. I'm back with more dev news.
First thing I'm gonna talk about is cut missions.
If you look at the picture below, you can see folders like 05, 06 and 07. I cut 5, 6 and 7 into mission 4. I don't know for now, what to do with those slots, so I'll concentrate my efforts somewhere else until I get ideas.

Next thing I'm gonna talk about is the AI. I have an AI I named AI Director, or Director AI. It's a homage to the main control AI in Left 4 Dead.

First, let me tell you what it does.

It controls all aspects of the game, from character routes, schedules and outfits, to doors and gates opening and closing.

In the picture above, you can see the abbreviation AID_, which means AI Director. An example of its job in the game:

Let's say a student character shows up in the school area at 8AM sharp. Who controls the student's schedule? The AI Director.

Each character has a different schedule on what they would be doing at home, at school, work or something like that.

Also, some player-caused and environment events may cause the characters to suspend their schedule and adopt another one I'm also planning to add to each one.

Let's take the character Felipe for a example. He is a Mei-Luo Academy student. Let's say you became his friend and ask him to accompany you on a mission(will be doable), but, his schedule tells him to go to school. His schedule will be suspended until you ask him to part ways, and only then he will return to his normal schedule.

For characters, the AI Director will also define their personalities.

Another example, this time about doors:

Let's say you are on a laboratory and press a button to release the lock on a door. Instead of immediately releasing the lock, the game will consult the AI Director to check if the steps needed to unlock the door were done. If yes, the AI Director releases the lock for you. So, it happens like this:

You push a button to disable a lock>AI Director checks if the button is pushed>If yes,it sets the door to unlocked.

Neat, huh?

That's just a little of what it's capable to do, I'm still developing it further.

How did I create it?

Well, I used two functionalities in ADRIFT, Tasks and Events.

Made tasks with restrictions and actions for control, and made the events for monitoring. If the time, for example, is between 8AM and 16:00, the character will be moved to the school or place of work. Or a store door will open.

I love creating things like that. Hope you liked this one, stay tuned for the next.

February 23rd, 2020: First post

Hello, welcome to Alan Dunaway's Game Development blog, where I, Alan Dunaway, talk about my development on my games.
I'm currently developing a text adventure game, with no name as of yet.
I started development on January 31st, and since then, I have made some progress, but I still need to do a lot more.
The game is a text adventure game made in ADRIFT 5, and happens in a cyberpunk environment, with a city divided by levels. Let me tell you a bit about it:
Synopsys:
You(the protagonist) are a netrunner, who, after a failed heist, decided to leave your hometown. Three years later, you return and see it changed a lot. Now, you decide to make it to the top, no matter the consequences.

My planned features for it:
30 main missions spanning four story arcs/episodes(may be increased with addons);
50 sidequests around the city;
Full time system;
Money system;
Various stores for you to buy things;
Buy properties and stakes in businesses;
A cast of characters with peculiarities, quirks, personalities, schedules and topics to talk about. They can be machines and humans;
Lots of good puzzles;
AI controlling everything on the game, such as character schedules, doors opening and closing, called by me AI Director, or Director AI;

For now, here is what is in the game:
Eight main missions, two introductory and six for the first episode;
One side mission that's being redone;
Full city map with 5 levels plus a basement level;
Full time system;
Money system;
Partial realty system, as in, only one building can be bought right now;
AI Director started;

Bugs I need to fix:
Not earning the mission 1 reward until the player leaves the location by typing "out" and pressing ENTER: still haven't come up with a solution for this. I guess it's not so impactful, so I'll leave it alone for now.