How I made my game for Brackeys 2023.1 Jam

BRACKEYS 2023.1 JAM DEVLOG

Date - Day# - daily hrs - total hrs

Saturday 2/11 (Day 0 - 0 - 0):

I first noticed Brackey's Jam some hours before the jam started just by browsing the jams page on Itch. Usually I noticed these major jams way in advance, but this one slipped under my radar somehow. Anyways I see this jam about to start and this is late on Saturday night. I think, maybe I can stay up to see the jam theme and then start, but the start time (and end) for this jam is well past midnight and I had a big day on Sunday. Again I didn't plan for this jam I just noticed it was starting so we will see how this goes....

Sunday 2/12 (Day 1 - 1 - 1):

I had a busy day planned for today with the SUPERBOWL happening so I wasn't able to work on the jam. I did see the theme however which is "AN END IS A NEW BEGINNING". So a rougelite basically is the idea I came up with. I messed around with some polygon packs that I own to see what type of game would work well. I decided a 3rd person zombie shooter would be fun. With the basic project started and idea down I was ready to start planning.

Monday 2/13 (Day 2 - 4 - 5):

With a regular job I only have so much time for game development during the week so I made a goal to work on the game at least an hour a day, preferably two, but today I actually worked close to 4 hours! My goal for today was to get the camera and player movement and start on animations. I wanted a 3rd person overview camera that followed the mouse position, but also kept the player in view. To achieve this I used Cinemachine and increased the field of view when the mouse was further away from the player. Getting the mouse position and keeping it within the player was quite a challenge and what I spent all my time on, but I feel that I got a good implementation of it. (The game I was trying to copy is "Running with Rifles")

Tuesday 2/14 (Day 3 - 1 - 6):

After a long weekend and spending too much time yesterday sorting bugs, I was really unmotivated today. Animation and especially in 3D is one of my weaker areas so I followed a few tutorials, but didn't really accomplish anything. It didn't help that today is Valentines day so I was already busy. All I did today was learn that there are animations included in the pack I'm using (but still learning how to use them!).

Wednesday 2/15 (Day 4 - 4- 10):

The goal of today is to get the animations done. I will need  a player run, player attack, zombie run and zombie attack. If I have time I can do death animations, but there is only 3 days left in the jam and there is still a lot to do for this game, like the spawning system, zombie AI, and I need some sort of upgrade system to really make it a rouguelite and make each run feel different. I start this tomorrow after the animations are done, but I am thinking you pick up money or coins and spend those at stations to upgrade your character. Things like character movement speed, shot accuracy and rate of fire would be good upgrades.

Thursday 2/16 (Day 5 - 5 - 15)

Finished the player and camera movement. Walking animation now works with player rotation and I added a cursor. Uploaded the first test build to Itch. Going to need more time.... UPDATE: Fixing bugs, so many bugs in the camera and cursor movement. I'll continue tomorrow and finish Saturday. I've got an idea for the song I just need to record it.

Friday 2/17 (Day 6 - 4 - 19)

Got all the animation how I want it. Not perfect but works really well and will be easy for me to do in the next game. I am realizing I won't be able to fit everything I want in this game and just focusing on what needs to get done.

Saturday 2/18 (Day 7 - 10 -29)

Final day! Added all the zombie animations and fixed countless bugs. Got the music and sfx added and worked on the bullet design which doesn't work great but it is what it is.

What I learned: Animation rigging isn't so hard if you figure out the system

What I'll do next time: Careful planning of my animations

Overall a fun jam and good learning experience.