Splash Screen and Logo

As we are plugging away to get a workable prototype by December 3, I went ahead and made an official text logo and splash screen for Desert Defenders.  Adding in a bit of UI and menus at this point seems to be the most logical step for production.  Getting the menus and UI in will help make Desert Defenders feel more like an interactive game than just an interactive screen.

The title is comprised of several different font bases. I chose fonts that looked calligraphic and slightly distressed with swooping and sharp strokes.  Once the text was rasterized, I added my own personal touches to the characters so as to differentiate them from the original bases.  For example, the "f" in "Defenders" was reshaped into a Scimitar sword to help reiterate the desert theme.  The background logo is the same one that is being used throughout the game as the emblem of Sakaduuba Village, Haroun and Rana's hometown.

I had quite a bit of fun making the splash screen, seeing as it is always one of my favorite parts about developing a game.  It is also quite an important piece in getting players hyped and excited for the game.  To make the logo stand out from the rest of the background, I encapsulated it in a pyramid, which also serves as foreshadowing to the final level and boss fight.  The two protagonists, Haroun and Rana, are also clearly depicted with their respective abilities and weapons in a way that shows the player right off the bat that the characters have different specialties.

-Jillian

Music Update

This week I've managed to complete two songs. The first is the new music for the village level. This track has a drum pattern that was inspired by the song "Requiem For The Indifferent" by Epica. The other song I made was for a new song for the Pyramid level.

Music Update

This week I've been putting the finishing touching on the Village music. This new music has both Arabic and metal elements to it.

The Evil Sand Witch, Mae'o

Here is a sneak peak at the main antagonist of Desert Defenders. She once started off as a harmless traveler to Sakaduuba Village, possessing the abilities to control the sand and mirages around her.  The villagers were intrigued with her abilities, but soon grew to fear them as she started to devise plans that would compromise the peace of Sakaduuba.  She was banished for her radical ways and condemned to live the rest of her days as a prisoner in the Pyramids of the Forgotten.  Now an object of fear and hatred, she is formally known as the Evil Sand Witch, Mae'o.

-Jillian 

Health HUD Update

The health bar is finally working now, so each time the player gets hit the bar goes down. After showing the health script to the lead programmer, there were a few things that needed to be fixed:

• The script has to be applied to the game manager
• Referencing from one script to another
• Rearranging some of the codes in the health script 
• Changing the float variables to integers in the game manager

As we were solving the situation, we set the maximum health to five instead of a hundred and managed to get Unity to track the character's health. When the game was running, the number appeared on the console and decreased for every damage that was taken. However, the health bar still didn't go down. Eventually, we managed to get the health bar working and the screen blinks red for every damage taken. It took us an hour and a half to get the health bar to decrease for every hit has been taken.

After solving the situation, I adjusted the health HUD by scaling and changing the color of the bars. It turns out that there are two layers, a background layer and a fill layer. I scaled the width of the background layer and filled it with red while the fill layer is green. It looks very amazing while the game is running. 

Before

After

Credit goes to the Unity tutorial for the health HUD and script videos along with the scripts themselves. Here's the link: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/survival-shooter/player-health?playlist=17144

SFX Update

I created pause, unpause, and checkpoint sound effects.

This week I worked on getting a coin into the game. The coin is the currency that the player will collect which will either be dropped by the enemies or appear randomly in the game.

Another thing I did was add another tree into level 2. This tree serves as a walk-able platform.