Finished First Build and going to GDC

Intro

Over the last few weeks I've been hard at work getting the GDC build ready. In terms of new features I added in the 2 new herb types for each herb and Research Mini-Games for each Herb. For the art assets I made UI assets for both Journals, updated the connections between nodes in the Research UI, added sprites for the two potions, and added sprites for the 2 potions. The rest of my time I spent doing small bug fixes and adding in a tutorial for the Research Mini-Game.

Tutorial Additions

I realized pretty quickly that I would need to add in a tutorial for the Research Mini-Game. I added in a key for what nodes did what as well as some text about how to complete the game.

New Herbs, Research Mini-Games, and New Journal UI

I added in the final two herbs and included sprites for each. Each of the new herbs now has its own Research game and the Herb Journal updates accordingly when the game is solved. Currently the only Herbs that have a use are the Fire, Ice, and Shadow herbs as they are the only ones used in the only two potions that are implemented.

New Sprites and Control Schemes

A lot of what I worked on was adding in sprites for the various UI elements in the game like the UI Journals and adding in icons for which controller and keyboard buttons did what. Currently, there are 5 different UI scenes being the 2 Journals, the Player's inventory, the Cauldron UI, and the Research Mini-Game UI. For these 5 UI scenes there are 4 buttons for them. This is because the Cauldron and the Research Station are activated by a single button which is set up to the Left Mouse on Keyboard and Mouse and the A button on X-Box. As it stands right now these are the only 2 control schemes that I have hooked up however I have made assets for PlayStation the control scheme is just not set up for it yet.

General Bug Fixes

Most of the bug fixes that I had to do were with the cauldron and the research mechanics. While writing this I realized that I need to do a better job in the future keeping track of the bugs that I fix as I can't remember what bugs I exactly fixed. Most of the ones that I fixed involved edge cases and making sure that a full playthrough of the game worked as intended.

What's Next?

I'm not really sure what's next for this project but I do know that I want to continue working on it. I even made a playable build for Windows that I linked below I'll probably transition into working on smaller projects or making some smaller tech demos and assets. I really want to fully complete a project and while I'm happy with the state the current game is in, I can also recognise that it will be a very long time until it is at the state where I can call it complete. Another thing is that while I enjoy the work I am doing on it I want to expand my skills in other areas that I won't be able to get to for months to years down the line. Aspects of the game such as AI agents and audio I will likely not touch for a little while and I'd like to be doing more of those. So for now I don't think this is a goodbye but more of a see you later. I even came up with a name for the game too: The Herbalist.
I'm planning on posting this on the night before GDC so I'm going to take this week to try to meet people (as scary as that is) and network as best I can. I am in no way planning on getting a job after the week is over but maybe I'll meet some friends and learn a bit from the talks I go to and have a better understanding of what I want to do next. I feel like there's a million things I want to do and each shiny new thing I see inspires me to do something else or make some new project. I don't think thats a bad thing rather I think I just need to focus it into something that I can be passionate about.

Pull Requests and Build