7-Day Fishing Game Jam

Hey all,

So I'm gonna be trying to make a little exploration type game? I guess. I think. I dunno. I was coming up with ideas for a set of parables and one of them was about this really patient little girl who fished for giant sky fish in the middle of a huge field. I never finished writing the story, but I thought it would be an interesting thing to try and make a game out of.

This is my first internet game jam and will be my first attempt at making a 'finished' game in Unity 3D, let alone in a time limit. So I'm gonna do my best to get as much done as possible. The plan is to get the basic game in, the main mechanic of targeting and being able to complete the game. And then I'll add in the details afterwards that will make it a more enjoyable piece of exploration.

That's the plan anyway. I wanted to start earlier today but I had to do some work for University. I'll try and keep up a good work flow over the week and see where I can get too.

Managed to get the terrain built and a third person character with running and jumping in. Doesn't look brilliant but a nice way to end the day with control and the level. Used some of Unity's example trees. I think I'll have to work out how I can make them look a little better if I get time at the end.

Tomorrow I'm pretty busy. I have to do that presentation at uni in the morning to afternoon and I'm at my part time job in the evening. If I get a little time between the two I'll start working on the giant fish behaviours and maybe add some floating rocks and stuff to make it feel a bit more unreal and story-ish.

I didn't get to do much work on the game yesterday, so it's just a little teeny update. I did get the giant blobs (that will one day be flying fish) to fly randomly around the terrain sky. So that's the main thing about them in for now. Now on the table is the actual gameplay mechanism of using a fishing rod! I've never implemented a tool for a character before so i'll be glad to have done it!

So I've been trying to get the fishing line working today. I've tried a few things and I got targeting to work. I'm just trying to work out joints in Unity. I've never used joints before. I'm getting closer to the solution, I'm just having trouble with rigidbodies and connected them to things. I've got to work it out though! I'm really enjoying myself, even if I am going pretty slowly. After I work out this thing, I'll be doing the mechanism for pulling in fished objects.

And then it's attempting to make and add assets and then adding cool explore-y stuff and maybe coming up with a kind of minimal voice over script thing. Woohoo!

I have hit a huge wall with the fishing line mechanism! I had a fairly full day on Friday so I didn't get to put much time into the game. But I had a look at possible ideas and I went with trying to get a spring joint working between the fish and a small rigidbody on the end of the fishing rod. As I said before I hadn't used joints before and I had done very little work with rigidbodies. So it screwed up the way the fish flew and I had trouble working out the best way to connect the rigidbody of the rod to the player and so on. I think that it would have been created the nicest effect, but I think I'll have to leave it and attempt to do it using my own scripts. I'll need to spend time understanding rigid body physics at some point. But I'm way too far behind and I still have no assets! My plan is to make it so that you can finish the game and then thats done, its a game. And if I have time I'll do as many assets as possible. Then on Monday night I'll put up a build of what I've got. And I think I'll probably keep working on it for a few days after that. And post up when I've added in a few bits and pieces that get it closer to where I wanted it.

I've definitely learned a lot so far. I am a little disappointed in myself in several places but I can see what I did and where I can go from there. So that's pretty cool. Off to scripting!

So I have a build of the game (windows only I'm afraid. Gotta figure out the web build because I use the right mouse button) which can be grabbed here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44444622/Fishing%20Jam/IKAG.zip. It's pretty basic and looks pretty lame. But I have enjoyed working on it. There's a lot I'm gonna do with it. But this is the end of the official 7 Day Jam on it. I won't submit it officially for another little while, I just wanna clean it up a bit. But I wanted to have a post up with the progress I'd made in the 7 days.

I know what I did and I know what I'd do differently now. It all seems much more clear but hindsight and all that. I would be harsher on the 7 day thing, but I'm enjoying it and this is my first attempt at a playable 3D game and at a completeable Untiy game so I've hit a lot of road blocks along the way. Great experience! Gonna go to bed now. Got a super long day tomorrow but I'll probably work on the game a bit with whatever time I have over the next week and then I'll probably submit then.

To get rid of the right-click menu, the easiest way you can go for is just choose the template that disables it:

In Edit > Project Settings > Player:

Click on the web build settings (the leftmost, the one that looks like a globe)



Just choose "No Context Menu".

Next time you build for web, the right click menu will be gone.

@AnomalousUnderdog Oh excellent! Thank you very much for your help. =) I will do that and then put a post up with a web build then in the next couple of days.

I have been weirdly busy doing job searching and things, but I've been trying to learn how to animate in blender. Super simple stuff at the minute but it is really fun! I think I'll submit it after I've done the models though and then I'll just keep working on it for funsies.

Ok. So I'm going to use this post as my submission post because having not submitted is really weighing on my mind. I got stuck trying to properly do the armature animations from Blender to Unity which is exciting because this is the first time I've ever done any animating, but annoying because I've not managed to put the models in. This jam has given me all kinds of firsts so I can't say it hasn't been useful! But I am a little disappointed in the lack of progress I've been able to make. You can fish the giant blobs out of the sky to win. But there isn't anything extra I'm afraid. It's still a game technically I suppose.

WASD to move
Left click to move camera
Shift to run
Right Click on Flying Blob to fish
Space bar to jump when not fishing

When fishing, press space when the arrow is in the red to successfully tug a Blob fish closer. Pressing space in the yellow will be a failed tug, 3 of which will break the line. When the fish and line disappear (there's a small bug where the fish disappears but the line doesn't because it's the fish is too close to you) you have captured the fish at which point the menu at the top left will allow you to just keep going or restart the game.

Here's a weblink which might work (with thanks to AnomalousUnderdog for helping me out with the context menu thing):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/444 ... layer.html

It might not work, due to the fact that apparently I have a beta version of Unity. Will need to look into that.

If that doesn't work, here's the windows download again.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/444 ... m/IKAG.zip

I am still working on it, slowly. I really want to add in the animations and some sound work at very least. And hopefully at least one secret into all that terrain that I built up in Unity. Still, even if I don't get to add those things, I have done several things I've never done before in this jam and it's sort of rounded out the process in my head a bit more. I'm really glad I did it, but hopefully next time I can produce something with a little more finish and depth. I'll keep posting til the two weeks are up (or I finish).

So I kept working on the game since the last post. I've added a couple of places to go. I've learnt a huuuuuuge amount from this. I'd never done any modelling, texturing or animations before and I'd never implemented any models before. And its obvious that it is my first time doing those things because they all look rubbish =P But that's AWESOME! It has been such a good experience making this thing over the last few weeks. It has made me really happy to have worked on this, no matter how long it took and no matter how it came out.

I still dunno if the web thing works but here's a link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/444 ... 20Jam.html

Aaand the download zip build too:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/444 ... m/IKAG.zip

I might add some music tonight but I don't think so. Onto the next project with all the knowledge I gained from this one! Excellent!

Edit:

Links now to builds with music! I downloaded Unity 4 because I realised that I hadn't done that yet O_O. And I added the music in. Hopefully nothing screwed up in the upgrade, but it seemed to work.

With many thanks to Tourmaline Hum for letting me use their track Evening Sky. (find them here: http://soundcloud.com/tourmaline-hum) Give them a listen if you like atmospheric, electro synthy stuff.