Devlog #5

Game Project Development Log 

Devlog #5 | 25th May 2025 

This past week has not seen much done, it was mostly just preparing a build for the testing session that occurred on Friday. 

I ended up getting the bombs to explode when they hit the player. This didn’t take too long because the asset pack also came with the required animation clip, so I just had to rebuild the animator and create some logic to trigger the explosion. 

The scoring has been properly implemented; now it takes into account both types of presents (the common easy ones and the ones in difficult places) to have different value added to the score. I also got a timer working that contributes to the overall score, and it is visible on the top right corner of the screen to remind the player that they do actually have to go as fast as they can. These stats are visible at the end of the level. 

I used a picture online for Santa's sleigh sprite. It was taken from Pixil.art and was created by user by the name of 4ND1 (@4ND1). The link for it is https://www.pixil.art/art/sleigh-3a36b28a7cd5617. I am not sure about copyright laws and what everything entails. I am using this picture for my game because I am not making any money off it. I would seek proper permission from the original creator if I were to use this as an asset for a game that I intended to make money from.

I have committed to at least making a second level, and hopefully a third if I should find enough time. As of time of writing this update (Sunday night), I have partially created it and it should not take longer than a day to finish. That is because all of the prefabs and game logic have been created in the previous scene, so I’m essentially just placing everything where I want them now and it is relatively quick (the trickiest part is being creative in level design). 

I made a shop which is technically not operatable yet. It is accessible after finishing the first level, and there is one thing for sale: A shield. I created a static GameStateScoring class that holds values for the score and purchasable upgrades using the score ‘points’, so it traverses scenes and scores from multiple levels can add up. This way the game also knows if the player has purchased anything from the store. I have successfully incorporated and tested the logic required for it to work. After completing level 1, you get sent to the shop, and you can use points to purchase multiple temporary shields. It successfully decrements points that have been tallied from the previous scene, and increments the number of shields also held in the static gamestate class. So now since I have the logic in place, I just have to design a shield which blocks enemy projectiles for 5 seconds and checks the GameStateScoring class to see if there are any shields available. This should not take too long to implement, as I just need a disappearing and reappearing game object that follows the player and collides with the bombs. Then I will probably make a purchasable “dash” function that speeds the player up quickly. 

The score tally is going to be written to a file at the END of the game, and the player will no longer be able to replay levels so it will just go from level 1 to level 2 to level 3 and finish. The final score will be the score that shows in the game’s leaderboard. This means that the player has to really think about if any upgrades are worth buying, and if they will truly help him/her in the future levels. 

Unfortunately because of time restraints, I am thinking I will not be able to incorporate a weapon into the game. I think this might be for the best, because the overall design of the game is meant to be about dodging things and good reaction skills, not mindlessly attacking things. 

Tasks for this week, the final hurdle of the game: 

• Finish level 2 design
• Create level 3 (if time permits) 
• Implement shield and dash mechanic from shop 
• Create permanent save to a leaderboard