Click here for a playlist of in development gameplay videos! You may find videos not posted here on this website in the playlist.
Embedded Files
Get Crab Island
Get Crab Island
Welcome to Crab Island! Crab Island is a short platforming experience, which involves stacking crabs, pushing crates, collecting coins, and evading the evil maelstrom cells. Can you survive Queen Lynnia's castle and make it to the other side in one piece? Use the itch.io download link to get Crab Island for yourself, for free!
Log 1 (The Plan) - February 28, 2023
Log 1 (The Plan) - February 28, 2023
For my first game, it is going to be a 2D platforming game in which your goal is to collect coins and defeat crabs. As of right now, the plan is to have it so if you fall in the water, then you have to restart from the beginning of the level you are currently on and you lose a heart (you will have 3 in total) and if you get hurt by a crab, you lose a heart. Hearts will be able to be regained by defeating a crab (50/50 chance at a heart drop). How do you defeat crabs? You launch the coins you have collected along the way at them! So that's the plan going into the project! I need to continue to create some more assets to use for the game, but once I'm done with that, I'll be able to jump right into unity and get a basic prototype done.
What I want to learn from this game is how to utilize sprite and texture animations in a way that makes what would be a very static world into one that is moving and alive. I want to use this as an opportunity to improve my pixel art as well. As far as learning the game engine goes, I plan to familiarize myself with character movement as well as collecting items and keeping track of how many of those items a player has.
Log 2 (Welcome to Crab Island) - March 5, 2023
Log 2 (Welcome to Crab Island) - March 5, 2023
The game now has a title, Crab Island. I included some early gameplay footage with this log to show the amount of things I have been able to accomplish in just a few days. First off, I started making the game in Unity! There is a playable character, I'm just calling it Blue Crab for the time being. The camera is able to track the x-position of the blue crab as well. I implemented moving hanging platforms as a little bit of added difficulty to the game. Coins and hearts (and treasure chests, which give 10 coins as opposed to 1 coin to the player) have been implemented, however, I have not added a way to view the quantity of both held by the character quite yet, but that will come in time. I have also come up with some ideas for enemies (rather than using crabs as an enemy, as stated in the first devlog), which you get to see at the end of the included video. More information about those to come.
I have implemented a lot of different animations to the game such as the ones to the water, the red crabs, the items, and the mysterious enemy at the end of the video. I also have strengthened my confidence in the unity software as a whole from the workflow to programming in C#. I coded the camera tracking script myself, which despite its simplicity, was very rewarding.
Log 3 (Stacks and Traps) - March 9, 2023
Log 3 (Stacks and Traps) - March 9, 2023
A lot of progress has been made (once again) since my last update here. As told in the title of this log, there are now stacks and traps. Stacks, as in being able to stack crabs. The player will now be able to land atop a crab and move with the crab as an extension of the player character. The stack can only consist of one red crab and one blue crab (the player character). The player can use "crabstacking" in interesting ways to reach areas unreachable without a crab to use as a double-jumping platform. As for traps, I have added a mace/spiked ball on a chain which spins around, serving as an obstacle for the player to overcome. I also plan on adding spikes which would act in a similar way to the mace, however they would be stationary traps on the ground.
Coin collection now works! The player will now be able to view how many coins the player has picked up on their journey. (The amount has been tracked in code for a while, it was just a matter of putting a counter on the screen to display the number) My next task is to implement a way to launch coins as a self-defense measure, as well as enemies to defend yourself against! The Maelstrom Cells are the enemies of which the player will be trying to defeat in Crab Island. I'm also thinking about how I am going to implement a final boss of sorts, however that will come with time. I also fixed a bunch of things here and there relating to player movement and respawning (a lot of stuff that has to do with velocity of the character), but no major fixes have had to be done yet. That's all for this update!
Log 4 (2O'Clock) - March 21, 2023
Log 4 (2O'Clock) - March 21, 2023
It has been a little bit since my last update on the development of Crab Island, but don't worry! Progress has been made. I have designed a title screen, end screen, and level name display screens. I am getting even closer to focusing on level design and using the systems I have implemented into the game to come up with some (hopefully) interesting and fun levels! There won't be a gameplay video included in this log as I am waiting until closer to release to show off what hasn't been shown in these logs already.
I have also decided on a name for my "studio" and it is 2O'Clock Games. This update is a rather short update considering there isn't all that much new to report on, however, I thought it would be a good idea to document some of the stuff that I have been working on in these past few weeks despite me not having much time to work on the game. Stay tuned for the next update, which could end up being the last devlog focused on Crab Island!
Log 5 (The Parasite that Dissolves Crabs) - March 28, 2023
Log 5 (The Parasite that Dissolves Crabs) - March 28, 2023
Crab Island is now a complete game! It contains 10 levels (13, when counting Prologue, Passage, and Epilogue). I am extremely happy with where it is now in terms of looks, feel, and overall experience. I have learned so much just this month alone!
Crab Island is now available to download on itch.io!
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse