No Excuses – Rao Dao Zao

Blog 822: Exon: Fragment OUT NOW

Dec 8, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

For how many years have I been saying “this year I’ll release something”? Too many to count, I’ll wager. But this year — for real this time — this year I’m actually doing it. Have I wasted all those years trying to build something in which nobody has the slightest interest, or have I hit upon a formula that will spark joy in its players?

Only one way to find out: download Exon: Fragment from itch.io now.

Do I want your feedback? … Uh… honestly? Only if it’s nice. I’ve put… rather a lot into this. (But if you’re already following me, you probably know that by now.)

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Game Development

Blog 815: The Next Level

Sep 5, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

The Exon Academy is complete! The first level of the first campaign of Exon is fully playable, a self-contained lump of quests along with the tentpole minigame of The Arena. Bookended by the “Insert Disc 2” notice that appears if you actually try to leave the area, it could be shipped as a demo — give or take any traditional bugs that still linger.

But I’m not going to do that just yet, because with the first level complete, it’s now time to… make more levels.

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Game Development

Blog 813: Closing the Loop

Aug 20, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

I am currently finding myself in a weird position with Exon. The first level — the Exon Academy and surrounding environs — is almost done, and so I’m starting to really want to move on to different levels… but I also don’t want to start making more levels until I’ve really, truly finished something. Especially when that something is very conveniently packagable as, oh I don’t know, a first release maybe?

The eternal temptation.

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Game Development

Blog 809: Raiding the Datavault

Jun 25, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

I was starting to flesh out the third section of the tutorial when I realised I was missing a screen. (What do you mean, I keep getting distracted from the minimum shippable vertical slice level?) One of the primary ways you’ll be able to get into places you’re not supposed to be is by finding the codes to keypad locks, except… well, then you need somewhere to store those codes, so you don’t forget them. You need a Notepad.

Then I realised that there was another missing piece of the datavault: the area map. How can you find your way around without a map? (Quite easily, my levels are not going to be particularly large, but indulge me, please.)

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Game Development

Blog 808: The Trigger Editor (Part 2)

Jun 18, 2021Jun 18, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

The saga of me wrangling Unity into my personal level editor continues. A few weeks ago I started using Polymorphic Serialisation for my trigger conditions and actions and — so far — this is actually holding up pretty well. There was one annoyance, however, in that adding an action using the list controls created an unsightly empty/null element that you… couldn’t actually do anything with.

Except now I’ve worked out how to do something with it, and it’s simplified a whole heap of other stuff!

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Game Development

Blog 805: Polymorphic Serialisation

May 23, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

I wrote recently of how I intend to tackle scenario-level logic in Exon; not systems like equipment handling or projectile weapon firing, but random bits of hyper-specific “bloke talks to you when you enter his house” or “quest updates when you acquire item” type stuff. This system works but has a few quirks that I’m not entirely comfortable with, so I’ve taken my life in my hands and started to look at a Unity feature that is quite fresh but seems to alleviate those concerns…

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Game Development

Blog 803: Getting Stacked

May 9, 2021May 9, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

I’ve had the first pass at Exon‘s inventory screen up and running for a while now, so it’s high time I refined it further. I was using a Slug Rifle the other day and realised that while I put this gun on sale, I didn’t actually put any ammunition for it on sale, and that led me to questions of how ammunition should be handled at all. Which in turn led me to item stacking.

Item stacking is a fun one because, on the face of it, it’s very easy: you just assign a number of “charges” to a particular item, count them up as you find copies of the same item, and count them down with each use.

Oh, my sweet summer child.

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Game Development

Blog 802: Buffs

Apr 30, 2021 Rao Dao Zao

For those that didn’t grow up modding Warcraft III: a “buff” is some lasting effect that is applied to a unit, such as it being stunned or on fire. Needless to say, Exon has lasting effects too. It’s not all impact-and-forget; mechs need to get stunned and corroded and all sorts of other things I haven’t thought of yet.

How hard can it be? You just stick the thing in a list and count down the timer until you turn it off… right?

Ahahahaha.

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