Most of us were slightly disappointed with the theme, we were hoping for mass-automation so that we could make a factory game :(

We're making it the best of it though. Like most other people, when we heard "In the shadows," we thought of a stealth game. We'll be making a 2d side-scrolling platform game about a ninja/assassin taking out the members of an evil organization. The player must sneak around and quickly take out as many enemies as possible before it's too late!

We're going to be using Arcade. Last week, we made (the start of) a tower defense game to get a feel for the library, as many of us had never used it before. It went decently well, so I'm confident we can all make use of this framework to make something cool. We're also utilizing the Tiled level editor for making maps. I used Piskel to get the template sprites, but we'll probably find some assets online.

So far we just have some template character sprites (blue rectangle), enemy sprites (red rectangle), and some floor blocks (grey squares). Here's a small demo:

Today we started work on the GUI screen. We added a start page and a functional settings page to map keys to what the player wants to.

We also decided to switch physics engines. Before, we were using Arcade's Platformer engine, but we decided to switch over to Pymunk so we could add in more complex abilities and functionality to the player and enemies. We also made the idle movement animations for the enemies, so when they aren't fighting, they scurry around.

All in all, we didn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped, given our team's size, but I suppose it's expected with so many people being busy.

Here's a demo of the enemy pattern:

Today, we implemented some of the more technical bits of the enemy detecting and chasing after the player. We also switched from fixed size maps to infinite maps within Tiled, so level sizes can be however big we want.

We're also starting on designing map block assets so that we can develop all the levels.

Here's an example of the enemy detection system. It's a bit buggy, but when the enemy turns and sees the player, it goes after them:

Today we (by which I mean mostly FieryIceStickie) spent most of the time trying to resolve merge conflicts. Two of our branches drifted so far apart that they were almost lost at sea...

Anyways, after that ordeal was cleaned up, we worked on optimization to reduce the amount of computations done each frame. This allows for us to scale up the game more and still have it be playable on most semi-modern hardware.

We're also starting to add in some sound effects to the enemies and GUI, such as an enemy alert sound and a button click sound. We'll add a lot more in the next few days.

As for tomorrow, we really need the finalized map block sprites. Once we have all of those, we'll start making lots of levels and create the combat system.

Today we started to implement the actual sprites into the game, including the animations. We're having some issues with scaling, but hopefully that can be resolved soon.

We also added in some sound effects, namely a whoosh sound from freesound for when the player jumps/dashes. We also added a little randomness to the pitch so that it doesn't get too repetitive. 

We still need to fully integrate all the sprites, then we'll make all the levels and maybe add in a song and other finishing touches.

Oh, and think of a name...

Unfortunately, we were unable to create all the things that we wanted, so there isn't much actual gameplay. We all tried our hardest, but other events and problems got in the way. This time was really fun and we all learned a lot! Congrats to everyone who finished their games, I'll try to play and judge as many as I can. I look forward to next time!