The tools I'm using

Hello again!

Just come back from a weeks' holiday and catching up with various things, including this post. Before I delve too much into the game itself in future updates, I just wanted to give a quick rundown of the tools I'm using to make PENITENCE.

UNITY

Well, yeah - can't make a game without a game engine, and for this one it's good 'ol Unity! I've used it before on previous prototypes and at work, so I'm very familiar with it. Also, I'm familiar with many of the tools from the asset store that I will need to make my game, the first, and most important one, being...

PLAYMAKER

I can't program for toffee, and I'm certainly not going to learn after all these years (and having tried and failed several times already). However, I do have a logical brain, and the state machine way of 'coding' that PlayMaker provides only took me a short time to pick up, and it is now literally the first package I install whenever I start a new project. Without this I would not be able to make anything at all - so thanks PlayMaker :)

DIALOGUE SYSTEM FOR UNITY

Hmm, wonder what this one does? Oh yep, it's a dialogue system. For Unity! Snark aside, this is indispensable if you're making any game with dialogue, and allows you to create node-based dialogue trees, comes with some example UIs you can use and modify, allows importing and exporting from various other programs and formats, and has pre-made volumes for easy triggering of conversations in your levels. It also has many other features I'm not going to list here, and is the second package I import into any new project.

TOP DOWN ENGINE

I did originally intend to roll my own top-down view for this game, but after spending so long trying to get characters to move and behave as I wanted when creating the Demon Detective prototype, I thought I would give this a try. I had it from a bundle I purchased a while back, and it's already saved me a bunch of time in setting up the game. It does have a few quirks that took a while to get used to, and contains so many extras that it made it a bit confusing when trying to learn how it all fitted together, but I'm generally happy using it so far.

POLYGON ASSET PACKS

Remember I said earlier I'm not a programmer? Well, I'm not an artist either. At least, not a 3D artist. I've illustrated comics, but that's as far as I'll stretch dimension-wise. These packs are a life-saver for creating prototypes, as they contain everything you could need, from properly boned characters with controllers, to so many varieties of building components, objects and environment assets. They are a doddle to integrate and use, and while they would not have been the final art for Demon Detective, they will be used as the final art for PENITENCE. 

And those are the main packages I have imported into the project so far! I am also using Unity CineMachine for cameras, and Timeline for creating cutscenes and environment animations, and much later on I will be importing UmotionPro in order to create some custom character animations as required.

After all this tech talk, I will be doing more 'game' and 'gameplay' related posts in future, so keep your eyes open to allow my words to slide into your brain!

Tony.