Dev.log Bronze

I haven't completely made a game yet, though I do small projects here and there. The more I practice, the more I get used to the tools I have, and the more I fully understand how much work really goes into a single project. Art, coding, organization, etc. can take hours, days, weeks, etc. Then it dawned on me how much even the simplest quality of life features need hard-core dedication

I've dabbled in many exercises that show me how certain components work; some of these are aspects I haven't touched before: a health bar, adaptive sound, dialogue options, camera work, and so on. While the sound work was much easier than I thought implementing it was going to be, the dialogue on the other hand was way harder. If I wanted to make a decent looking text box for characters, I had to learn about raycasting, delve deeper into Canvas options, and really dissect the flexibility of child objects for video games. The health bar seemed simple, but it was very tedious; the end result however was worth it. The final new technique I learned about was the game camera. My previous experiences were somewhat a hassle and simple at the same time but in this case, I was introduced to extensions and plugins. This made me realize how many are potentially out there and how beneficial would it be to use these versus making everything from scratch. Everything else from camera controls, sprite work, etc. were either refreshers or had more layers to them.

All that was to bring up the point that I still have way more to learn. I feel like I have good concepts under my belt and can do well to make certain features and mechanics work well, but not enough to keep the ship sailing. To me, making games is like investing in stocks: you put in a lot only to receive a small result initially but will help in the long run. I respect and understand programmers, artists, and designers so much more as I continue my journey. Those who work on smaller roles still do an amazing job putting the icing on the cake. No matter what role I take, I hope I'm up to the task and can give it my all

Go to this website https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator Pick one of the 5 words that are randomly generated. Add it to your card game! Remember to reflect on this exercise for your dev.log

So the card game I made was called Arsine, it's a card survival game where every card you gain depletes your health based on the value of the card. There are a few methods to progress the game, all of which are risky in their own right. Because of these restrictions, it was really hard to pick out a word just to get started. Then I found one that may yield some interesting results: burst

So at first when thinking of burst, I thought of an explosion. One way to incorporate this was to change the Joker card from an instant kill to a bomb that affects the winning player. Or maybe somehow make it a countdown timer or have it affect players during the preparation phase. Another way I thought of using burst was rapid-fire. Again, I would change the Joker card to a card that forced the winning players to instantly draw several cards at half their initial cost so it couldn't be an instant kill. That or maybe make some duel mode out of it or something along those lines. I had a few other ideas like life drains, cards hurting the opposite players in other ways, and maybe some status effects.

All these were great ideas in theory, but the main problem that I ran into when brainstorming how much the game would potentially be unbalanced or even be unfair at times. I thought really long and hard about balancing and how many benefits and caveats each card should offer, but I'm still unsure. I'm sure I could've found a more suitable word or come up with other mechanics depending on the context of burst; the bottom line is that the game is made a specific way and sometimes it's best to leave it on the drawing board. If I were to legitimately consider these ideas, I might have to rework the entire game structure, and that would be problematic, or helpful depending on perspective