Pixel Game Project: Dev Logs

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 1 [8/31/24]

Hello!
I am currently making a pixel game and I would like to create Dev Logs on my progress. I know making a pixel game is not very optimized for Roblox Studios, but as an indie developer, I think I would like to explore new paths to Roblox. I am also very new to this (development on Roblox studios, pixel art, scripting, etc.) and I’d like to take new challenges for commit to this project.

Anyways…

Today I made my first ever tile sets, Yay!

I did this using a program called Aseprite and I made my tiles based off of a 16 tile dual-grid tilemap.

Fundamentally following this:

Credits to golddotasksquestions for the screenshot.

In the long run, this should help me so I only have to make a few tile maps instead of hundreds, but it’s going to need a lot of scripting I currently don’t know how to do…

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 2 [9/1/24]
Heyo!
New little update on my project. I noticed that the grass had patterns which can be hard on the eyes a little bit seeing it over and over again. So! I made variation…

Ta da!

The pattern on the left is created in a diagonal pattern where as the right one is random variation from your’s truly spamming work. I think I prefer the random variation more as it feels a bit more natural.

Not sure how I am going to implement this into Roblox, but I think a random generation script should work? This is coming from somebody with no scripting experience…

Alas! Push that to another day.

This is now our updated sheet though, It was 128x128, but to put the new tiles in I had to push it to 128x160.

No biggie! Still a small amount of tiles to be creating and managing.

Focus Points
Woah new bold title. Yeah I figured I should put what I need to do next to keep track of things.

I think I am going to create some new dirt tiles next, I’m not quite sure if I am going to intergrade them with the grass sheet or have them be a separate sheet. I think I want them to show up on the world grid, but I was going to just keep the world grid transparent for lag…

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 3 [9/2/24]
Hello!
I know I said last time I was going to start on the dirt blocks, but! I instead made a little character made with blender.

This is what he looks like as pixel art


The actual size is 96x96, but for you guys to see it I made it slightly bigger to look at. Here’s how he looks on the lovely grass:

I think he’s a good size comparing it all, he’s basically three tiles tall.

Focus Points
Haha. Alright, I’ll actually start with creating dirt tiles next time and maybe other biomes…? We shall see though…

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 4 [9/7/24]
Hey guys!
It’s been a little bit… I just recently got fired form my job after being with a company for two years. Me and my boss often butt heads and on her last her a week of leaving she decided she was going to take me out too. She last minute changed my schedule and I ended up missing a day resulting in a “no call, no show”. I have never done that in the past two years I’ve been working for them, my attendance has been basically perfect. But… I guess that was enough to suspend me and fire me.

Anyways, why am I telling you all of this?

It’s pretty simple, I feel bad lol.

And I kinda just treat this like my little dairy, suppose to be therapeutic or something to right down your thoughts… So they say.

But! I also just wanted to be honest with you guys, I know there is not much of you guys out there looking at this, but woah! 60s views! That’s 60 human beings…! I hope you guys who are looking at this are enjoying what I am making and taking this process with me.

Jesus lady, get on with the show already. Alright, alright…

So! Surprisingly, I haven’t been a complete stick in the mud with this project and I have been semi-productive.

Yay!

This is where we are at right now:

Woah! That’s a jump in progress from last time. I mean, the dude actually has clothes, hair,
and eyes now. So, deep diving into that a little bit:

His clothes and hair are modeled… P.S. I stole the hair from neutralize, please check them out and thank them for the free assets!

Where are the eyes?
Yeah I had to hand draw those which is fine for me, literally only a few pixels to do.

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention how I made it all pixelated in blender, I honestly think I copied this node set up from CBaileyFilm that he made in the compositor. Check him out! He’s pretty cool too and easy to follow.

Moving on though to the dirt tiles!
Which took me so long to make… I think I have like four different versions till I was finally satisfied with the results above.

You might be counting and realizing there is only three sets, but there are actually more on my laptop when I did this at college in my spare time… Sigh. Not sure why it took me so many tries, it could’ve been how this week was going to be honest with you. But here it is all randomized:

I need to wrap my head around how I am going to approach combining this with the grass textures and other biomes… But we can leave that as a later thought.

Focus Points
Alright! The plan is to make more tiles for other biomes. I got about five biomes planned… Not telling you what they are, you’ll just have to keep in touch with this dev forum… Hahahaha.

But Hey, what do they say?

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 5 [9/10/24]
Heyo!
Took a few days off to collect myself, but we are still on the roll! So surprise, surprise, I have made another grass texture for a red woods/pine biome.

Now, I know what you might be thinking cause I am thinking the same thing. This style is very different from the grass style for the birch forest.

I honestly made this new grass on my laptop… In fact I am posting this all of my laptop today lol… But I do not have the grass or dirt assets I made on my PC… Unfortunately (I should just put all of my assets on a google drive or something…).

I honestly kinda of adore this new grass, but the old one is so good too! I will have to try this all out when I get back to the PC…

Focus Points
Pretty simple, keep working on those biomes.

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 6 [9/13/24]
Hello!
So for the last couple of days, I haven’t been working on the focus points from last time.

Womp, womp, I know I’m bad at this.

But! I have been working on a couple different other things… I’ll reveal one of the things I’ve been working on when we’ve reached Dev Log 10… So stick around!

Anyways! Your girl decided to touch scripting for the first time and this is what she made:

local Part = Instance.new("Part") --Defining the part
Part.Parent = game.Workspace.CurrentlyPartsSpawned
Part.Size = Vector3.new(4,0.001,4)
Part.Position = Vector3.new(1022, 0.001, -1022)

for count = 1, 10 do -- Looping the part
	local ClonedPart = Part:Clone()
	ClonedPart.Position = Vector3.new(Part.Position.X + 0, Part.Position.Y + 0, Part.Position.Z + 4 * count)
	ClonedPart.Parent = game.Workspace.CurrentlyPartsSpawned
end

By the way, thank you to LE4FBUG for helping me create this script. He was able to break everything down for me in this topic I made: Help with part duplicating script.

Now you might be thinking, what am I doing here?

So! I am trying my best to create a grid to load the tile textures onto since unfortunately roblox studios doesn’t seem to have a built in system to make multiple grids (since my tile sheets are made for a “dual” grid system).

Now, I am not sure how this is going to be for performance wise, but I am sure the more I test this out and script I write, the more I will understand how stressful this is for roblox.

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 7 [9/22/24]
Hello!
It’s been a while. I’ve ben a bit stressed financially lately and with exams which has lead to my huge lack of motivation. I have been working on this game little by little though in my spare time and I think I should just share the little bit I have.

So.

Here we are with some biomes! Can you guess them?

I had a huge struggle trying to make biomes and as well keep the perlin noise 2D. So thank you and credits to PieInDahFace for breaking down 2D perlin noise without necessarily having height involved.

But honestly… The perlin noise isn’t exactly fitting right with me. I wanted biomes similar to Don’t Starve Together which requires what I think is voronoi noise.

I did open up a Dev Post about voronoi noise and Skellyton has been helpful and insightful with his code he has written for me. Now, as a beginner scripter, I am struggling to combined my current code with the code that has been given…

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

Also thank you guys for the 130 views and to Fefeijon for all the love <3

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 8 [9/24/24]
Hello, hello!
So I’ve decided to try redoing the original grass to fit this new style we got going on.

Old Texture:

New Texture:

It’s much brighter! and I think I definitely like the less, but more ish? detail…? Wow what a confusing sentence…

Here are some further comparisons:

I still think the old grass transitions smoothly… but I think the further I do this style the more comfortable I will get with make the textures look good. I will have to think on it though!

Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 9 [10/8/24]
Hello!
Sorry I’ve been missing for two weeks, I decided to take a break from this project for a moment and work on a book me and a friend have been working on! So no bad news this time… lol. Just a heads up though, I’m going to try and manage this project and the book weekly. This means I will be posting a minimum of once a week here and it’s less likely any more than that.

Anyways!

After some feedback, I have abandoned the grass tiles from the previous post. It was too bright and too straining.

So I made this version:

To which I was really happy with… until I smashed it together with the redwoods biome’s grass…

Yeah not very good… The styles of both of them were extremely vast and different from each other. So after some redoing and redrawing. I came up with this new style for the birch forest grass.

This is so much better than the last three attempts, which has been tiring, but well worth it.

Next week I think I am actually going to start reworking the dirt… or a new biome! Either one will be good.

But Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

P.S… Next post is the special surprise, keep in touch to find out about it!

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 10 [10/12/24]
Hello hello!
So… I’ve kinda restarted everything… again… But! I have adopted this new method that is making my work flow ten times quicker than before.

So I’ve been able to make couple different tiles now using blender!

Yes, I’ve changed the style of the grass to a more simplified style, but! I think when I add in trees, grass, sticks, etc. It will look much better.

I’ve taken this image I am found as inspiration.

Credits to aamatniekss for the artwork.

But anyways! Using blender has allowed me to change colors and patterns super quick. For example, I was also able to start on the mountain biome.

Hopefully this means I can spend less time trial and error-ing the style and colors I want and instead focus on further making the game!

Now… for the surprise I’ve been hinting at for way too long now…

A Community group and server!

I want to interact with you guys and get direct feedback from you viewers, and since this game is in such early development, you guys can help me make decisions and the direction of the game! Go ahead and join the group and the server is linked up there: Another Day Studios.

Now don’t be worried, I still fully plan to continue posting here as I enjoy it, but if you want to see further WIPs of the game and learn more, I recommend joining!

But Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.

[McIrrIsh]

Dev Log 11 [10/22/24]
Heyo!
Sorry for no updates, I have been doing work… actually a lot of work… for this project and I have been debating what I have been going to post. Also shout out to my discord server and for the 200 views here! You guys are awesome thank you for showing so much support and reading my nonsense <3.

So anyways…

Let’s start on this tree I’ve been making using blender. I followed a tutorial by trungduyng and I recommend checking him out. He goes by everything step by step that even beginners can follow.

Some behind the scenes in blender…

I am currently on my laptop while writing this so I do not have access to my blender files, but it uses geometry nodes to keep the texture of the leaves facing only towards the camera. From there you have some other node settings to control color and contrast.

Currently, I am working on a huge issue… one that I can’t seem to make in blender easily for me…

I am currently working on cliffs!

Now the top tiles are ones I attempted using blender and the bottom ones I made by hand.

In general… I don’t like any of these! Cry…

I do think though that I am going to have to learn how to make these cliffs by hand first before even thinking about doing it in blender. Little by little, I am learning the pixel art world… lol.

But Oh well! Another day. Thanks for reading this though if you found it and I will keep update on it.