Progress Devlog 2 - Basic Level Blocking

Adding Basic Level Blocking:

Stage 1: Tile Mapping
The first step was creating a sprite to use for setting my levels. I went with a basic brick I created using DALL-E 3. 

This was a great first start and allowed me a good testing area for my character and horse.

However, an important component of my game is having destructible blocks, so I modified this sprite into four images, showing various damage levels of a block.

Stage 2: Destructible Blocks

(Image: Four levels of block damage for my spritesheet)

I attached a script that allowed each block to take a certain number of hits before transitioning to the next phase of damage.
Unfortunately, there were a few issues with this when using tiles, so I had to switch to using a custom tiling method which allowed for painting gameobjects onto the scene.

Eventually, the method worked well, and i had destructible blocks!

(Poor Quality Gif: Water cannon destroying bricks!)

Stage 3: Making Level Layouts
The next step was laying out the blocs to create different levels. This is still in its early stages, as the main thing for me was creating destructible blocks that interacted well with the player. 

Nevertheless, I currently have 5 basic scenes:
- Home Village
- Forest Scene
- Highway
- Base / Fire Station
- Fire station Armory

A few of them are illustrated below:


(Image: Kittens home village)


(Image: Highway scene)


(Image: Fire Station / Base)

Stage 4: Adding Objects
The last step this week was adding in objects, that the player could interact with, such as furniture.
And also filling scenes with trees and plants.


(Gif: No jumping on the bed in front of the children!)


(Gif: That's what you get for blocking my village, tree stump! )

Player Feedback this week:
I think it might have got missed by a lot of people on the main chat in this weeks tutorial! But a couple of people saw it. 
- Players still like riding the horse which is great.
- A couple of players struggled with using weapons. (I think this was due to the itch io bugs, which I believe I have resolved.)
- I also am not sure that players are realising that you can enter cabins and talk to other cats, so i'll need to improve guidance on that


That's about it for block related progress this week.
For a summary of all the other additions to the game this week, please see the summary post.