KanaKana Progress Report

A couple of days ago I uploaded a build of the game to the language site Smart.fm, to have it tested. I got some very helpful advice on what needed to be done to make KanaKana work better. One of the biggest concerns was that more letters were needed. Therefore I have to go back and rework the letter handler (I'm keeping a back-up of the working script just in case).

Going through and creating the letters for each set has resulted in something quite startling though. There is 70+ characters in each set (hiragana, katakana, and english), luckily I've been able to lower the number of materials needed but that's still over 210 textures in use (not all at once thankfully). After I get everything working again I might need to worry about efficiency a bit deeper.

With some luck I'll have everything online before the deadline on Wednesday.

KanaKana Progress

new KanaKana now with:

a fully functional HUD (some glitches excepted)

a New Game function

a display of which letter is selected

and sparklies when the title is selected (will lead to the About page).

On top of that, I've also fixed it so that:

• arrows will disappear when their letter is destroyed
• the player can click anywhere on the board to move a piece after it is selected (a bit iffy in the builds though ... will sort out ASAP)
• the menu buttons will switch out for a Japanese word when highlighted and return to English when not

Made a lot of progress today. And today's not even over yet.

KanaKana Update

After a little monkeying with the code and some issues of displaying text, KanaKana now has ... [drumroll] ... an actual heads up display, complete with functional buttons. The only button that does anything at the moment is the exit of course but it's a start.

The numbers along the HUD will actually change when I tell them to. At the moment all they do is cycle up, but it's a start. Once I get the different scripts talking to each other they'll actually have meaning. Might even try adding a clock.


Now just about all that's left to do is:

• Get the scripts communicating
• Set up the new game function
• Set up the next level (hopefully so it will keep going)
• Add a help-screen
  
• And adjust some features

Anything after that is just gravy. If I get it running on time I'll be able to add more letters. With some luck, I'll have it ready for beta testing tomorrow afternoon. I've already got plenty of volunteers waiting to give it a try.

Kana Kana Update

After correcting a few issues in the code, the basis for the game is finally ready. The player can now click on a letter and have it move in the direction they want it to. The pieces will move and gradually lose momentum. And each pair of letters is able to recognise when it has run into its partner. Now, I just need to add a menu and continued playability, but first an Art Pass.

Because my previous art style seemed a bit haphazard (and distracting), I have been advised to give the art style an overhaul before continuing. I am trying to give it a more Japanese feel by shaping the art around the game Go. Still have to adjust a few things, but I think that this approach is more suited to the game I am trying to make.

Not long now and I should have a nice little game to present (good thing too, time's almost up).

Kana Kana Update

2 weeks left to get this game up and running.

I've managed to make a lot of progress today, but still have awhile to go before it is ready to play.

The game now has a proper title to work with. かなカナ(Kana Kana). Being that Kana is the name of the syllabaries in Japanese, and also a word meaning "I wonder" or "I think". A silly little pun that will need to be explained somewhere. Will be doing up the title screen when I get the chance.

Added a transparent sphere mesh to each letter to make them into balls. Also place a series of walls on the field with colliders on them to bounce the balls off.

Made it so that when a ball is clicked, an arrow will appear and rotate around the letter to follow the mouse. At the moment, the ball will move when clicked again but in a direction regardless of the mouse and with no loss of momentum.

Through use of some crafty coding I can now summon all 5 letter pairs to the field using only one mesh for all of them. I had to go back to using 5 separate materials for each letter (10 all up), but I should be able to go back to using texture swapping when I include the other letters (a half dozen other sets) by dividing them into sets.
Have also managed to set it up so that the letter pairs will recognise each other when they hit. They will then destroy and release a sparkly cloud of particles. In the end there will be some sort of score that is added to by this.

A lot done. Still more to come. This should be fun.

Status Update

After much thought I have decided to focus towards the pool concept from my last post. By removing the typing component I am hoping to make it simpler for the people who never seen these symbols before.

What I am planning is for a half dozen balls to appear on screen (a pair of each letter set [kana & alpha]), the player then clicks the ball they want to move. The objective is to bounce the ball around the table and into its partner. This is done until there are no letters remaining. A side challenge would be to do it in the fewest clicks possible.

At the moment I should have all the code-base I need to knock together a functional prototype, just need to type it in. Right now I can summon a pair of letters to random positions on the field easily, adding more shouldn't present a challenge. After that it's just clicking and firing that remain.

I have also fixed the issue of needing multiple materials to texture (still need the individual letters as textures though), now all I need to do is figure out how to change colour via code and it should be set.