#can be very tedious. i almost dropped my laptop when it spawned

[spiribia]

my less discussed other baby Crocodile. original name i know. i was tickled for whatever reason that this baryonyx pattern was based in part off red-eyed crocodile skinks.

#talks #baryonyx is uniquely a nocturnal spawn and only one of them spawns a day for most seasons so finding an ultra rare #can be very tedious. i almost dropped my laptop when it spawned

[thepinknoodlet]

Networked Mobile Mechanics Prototype

Updated on 14 July 2020, my brain is dry and my laptop screams eternally :)

Overview

It’s been some time since my last update, so sorry, I’ve been busy trying to figure things out and also went through a bit of a burnout a few weeks back. This prototype is nowhere near complete, and is more of my attempt on networking the mobile mechanics. As per usual, I’ll be sharing updates and changes made in more detail, so let’s get to it!

Prototype Draft

In this prototype, I updated and restructured the mobile mechanics scripts to be networked and work with both players instead of just one. First, I’ll go through what a single player can do, and then talk about what both players can do. The new methods have been bolded for clarity, with the previous versions listed beneath each one!

The player can now:

Interact with ingredients

Spawn ingredients from the respective shelves

Drop ingredients on the floor and pick them back up

Drop ingredients onto the ingredient tray in a pre-determined position

Ingredients now rot if left on the floor for too long

Ingredients could not rot

Ingredients can now be thrown away, while rotten ingredients must be thrown away

New implementation of trash bin!

Wash dirty dishes

Pick up dirty dishes from a table

Bring the dirty dishes to the sink

Stack up to 4 dirty dishes in the sink

It used to be just 2 dirty dishes

Wash one dirty dish at a time, while near the sink

Place up to 15 clean plates on the plate tray

Plates now have their own tray, they used to be placed with the ingredients

When networked, the players can also see:

Networked Objects

What each player is holding on their head

Ingredients that have been dropped onto the floor

Ingredients that have been placed onto the ingredient tray

Ideally, there should be more that both players can do. As such, I will be working on implementing networking for:

Dirty dishes in the sink

Clean plates on the plate tray

Picking up ingredients and dirty dishes

Currently, only the host is able to perform these actions

The base mechanics for all these methods have been implemented, however, I am struggling a little with the networking commands and am still trying to figure that out.

Regardless, I am proud of my progress, as networking mechanics is something I have been putting off for quite a bit, and have been absolutely dreading since the project first started. It was also the reason for my burnout for 2 weeks or so, so I’m glad I’m almost back on track!

Review

This was a pretty challenging prototype to get out, even in such an incomplete state. The problem mostly came when I had to network the actions players could take, since there was a lot to take into consideration. One of the first hurdles I faced was figuring out how to let the player pick up networked objects. Luckily, this guide from the official Mirror site made it easy to start so I could get the hang of it within a short period! Then came the tedious part of having to reorganize rewrite and relocate my scripts to fit the networking criteria. There was a lot of Synchronizing being done, and even more commands and server callbacks being made, so it took quite some time to ‘port’ all my existing mechanics to be compatible with networking. 

I won’t bore you with the details but it was just very challenging and confusing at times, as I am still not experienced with using any sort of networking API, even one as convenient as Mirror. I eventually got about half of it working, and decided I could fix the bugs later on, since I didn’t want to spend 5 hours trying to fix bugs and neglecting the other responsibilities I had. 

After getting the draft out, I went ahead and built on the ingredient rotting mechanic that my fellow programmer @theeggnoodlet made, so that it now actually worked across the network! Did I mention she is also working on the customer mechanics, and is doing an incredible job at it? Do check her blog out for the latest updates on that part of the mobile mechanics!

I’m sure you’ve also noticed the snazzy User Interface, it looks much better compared to the previous prototype, doesn’t it? They were made by the amazing @thecatnoodlet! She will also be sharing some tips for concept art sometime this week, so I highly recommend you check out her blog too!

Last but not least, our 3D modeller is hard at work with getting the final assets out, and he’s been doing absolutely well so far! Do head on over to @theboynoodlet‘s blog for updates and a sneak peek into what he has been doing!

This post dragged on a little longer than expected, but that’s fine, since I did have quite a bit to update! I will be working on fixing the bugs as well as implementing customer mechanics whenever @theeggnoodlet passes them over. See you soon!

#unity #gamedesign #game dev #game design #mirror network #devlog