PostMortem - Future plans and thoughts.

So this will probably be my final post for this game, until I have time and/or energy to continue it. Because you better believe me I'll continue this game, I still have a lot of ideas and levels I want to create, but for now I'll pause development.

Why?

Well this game started as my project thesis, so I have been working on it for more than a year now, when I started this project the first ideas were almost nothing compared to what I have now, funny how things work, my original idea didin't even have elements in it, but the core idea of an arena style shooter with some "different" mechanics stuck throughout.

I'm making this "Final" post to explain some of my steps, struggles, things that work and things that didn't work, and what I plan to do with the game moving forward.

As I said, this game is in other words my final college project that I had worked on for more than a year, and as such will not be continuing for a while due to extreme burnout, working on it has been a challenge and quite a daunting task, especially as I have done 99% of the work completely on my own.

(First Phase/Prototype1, Concept and investigation) - The Basics

I, of course, first started this project by pitching some ideas to my supervisors and professors. I first wanted to make some kind of multiplayer Halo style arena FPS with some equipment, but as I developed the idea more and more most of the ideas got scrapped or got heavily reworked as new ones. I also at first wanted to make a dungeon crawler fps with rougelike elements and mechanics... If you have been following my work/progress at the start or look at "old" posts, most of you will note that at first the game was centered around a Gun that as you went on, you upgraded your gun with attachments and elements, this of course didn't happen as making such a comlpicated project with such inticrate systems was almost impossible to make in such short time and only by one person.

In my first Prototype I wanted to first get out of the way some of the basic game mechanics, such as picking different elements, and movement, in fact this first prototype was so early that you couldn't even look up and down, and all the "elements" shot the same bullet, this in tandem with some basic documantation made up my first three months starting this project. (July-September 2023) 

(Second Phase/Prototype2) - Elements

On the next three months I then created the second gun prototype that could pick up elements and this time each had different effects and not being the same bullet, I first had in mind and wanted to do an FPS with dungeon crawler/rouge-like mechanics, anyway... I made it so you could only carry one element and attachment at a time, but hav the ability to have two guns, so you could costumize each one so you could impliment your own startegies to win the game, but again alas that was too complicated to make in such short time with only one person working on it. I managed so that the gun could work with all four elements (and a default one, so 5) and 5 different attachments that shot different kind of fire rates. This, was the last idea/mechanic that survived from my original idea of making a rougelike fps, the attachments were planned so you could get them in chests or rare drops/store items, while the elements you could get on special areas and stores. (October-December 2023)

Note: This screnshot while very similar to the previous one on a first look is in fact vastly different in terms on code and more robust mechanics, getting the elements to work as intented while having different effects took me those three months for my second phase of the project.

Now here's a funny fun fact, when making the second prototype I didn't have a level so playtesters could... well... play the game and give me some feedback about my game, my professor even said I did't have a game, just game mechanics, so I quickly make a level as fast as I could, at least so I could show something, if one could look close at that level, one could recognize some layouts and room to a newer level, I also speedruned my way so you could look up and down finally.

So it's kind of funny that the first level I made, it's also the last one (still working on it), from the very beginning I wanted to make this level splited into 4 parts, so the player could chose which path to take, each path would have been dediacted to found and get one of the elements, and each one was supposed to be designed around their respective element, with enemies weak to that element. But I could only complete a portion of one of the paths as I decided to work on other things first, before taking such a big task of a level. I still plan to complete that path and then make the other paths in the future. 

Also at the end I implimented a bullet counter and manager, at first I was not sure if I should make players search for ammo, but later decided that the player would have unlimited ammo that would need recharching.  (LateDecember2023-EarlyJanuary2024)

(ThirdPhase-Alpha) - New face, New mode

My next three months, were... a huge overhaul and overall improvement, I first decided with some suggestions, that I should change the game world from a modern one to a fantasy, I mean looking back on it, the game screamed more and more about a fantasy setting the further I advanced on it and thought about it more. Changing the world would have also gave me more freedom in designing, well... everything. I could have more interesting enemies, level design and much more, so at the end it was a big no brainer.

So ElementalCrypt was re-born as it is, this phase was a very gruelling one. As I made a whole new enemy with a lot of variations, this will serve as a basis for new iterations and improvements of the enemies. Each one with it's own weaknesses and strenghts when getting hit by the elements.

In tandem with making brand new enemies, I also made a new starting level, that I would consider as a Tutorial, just without any handholding.

I wanted to make a level that was easy to beat, while at the same time getting the players to familiarice to the controls and the game movements, while at the same time introducing some basic mechanics.

But this one was the hardest, the main reason why did I make a lot of new enemies (at least their base)... I wnated to make an Arena mode so that all of my main game mechanics could shine at it's best.

I had to make a new level without exits, that would also house all the elements that you could grab, waves of random enemies to always keep the player on their toes, improve movement so it doesn't feel as yanky, and a lot of other small things. (January-March 2024)

(FourthPhase - Beta)  - Visuals

The penultimate phase, and another three months... 

For this phase of my project I decided to at least have a lot of the visual part of the game completed, so I did a lot of 3d Modeling, I made new models for all the enemies, a new model for the Staff(weapon), Added textures and some objects to previous scenes...

I also added brand new attack and behaviors to existing enemies, especially the elemental enemies, those I made them summon elemental attacks  making them more like suppoerting units for the other melee based enemies.

And finally, I added some basic menus, and the foundation for other menus (they don't work yet). (June-April 2024)

Post related to phase: https://spicychicken737.itch.io/theelementalcrypt/devlog/780429/new-update-v69-n...

(FinalPhase - Gold) - Audios, Animation, trailer, and the smaller things

For this final phase and last three months , the thing I wanted to do was improve the gamefeel, I achieve this by implementing more animations, for all the enemies (even though a lot didn't work), and some audios to give some feedback to the player.

I also work on some smaller details, small errors I could fix, some damage and health values, tidy up some menus, enemy UI, nothing to grand.

And at the end I made a small trailer for the game, it could use some work, but for a first trailer, I think it's fine.

Final Thoughts...

So... did I achieve what I set out from the begining? No! Of course not, At first my initial idea was making a rougelike Fps, and the only thing that survived from that original idea was the core mechanic of having diferent forms of the weapon. Am I dissapointed with the final product? No, I'm very proud of myself for making such a large project all by myself, even if it was hard and very exhausting I very much enjoyed the final project.

Did I achieved everything I set out for? Unfortunately, no, I had a lot of plans for this project but time constraints made it impossible to do everything I had plan, But at least I managed to make most of the important things I did plan.

I manage to have at least the game mechanics just the way I wanted, even though I'm not an animator, the animations I did, i think they came out decent enough, and I think that the overall game, came out pretty good all thing considered.

Future plans?

Yes! I mentioned before that I 100% intend to continue this project, I have a lot of notes and ideas I want to impliment, but couldn't do because of the strict timeframe and personal energy. I don't think I planning to continue it too soon as I need to take a long rest, as I'm really feeling extreme burnout, but I'm sure I'll continue it in the Future

Thanks for reading! and goodbye for now