Hey all! Last month, my mascot Corncob began sharing behind-the-scenes screenshots of Garb & Corncob on his Twitter. I thought it’d be a good idea to compile these screenshots into monthly devlogs here, and that’s just what I’m going to do, starting with what was posted during the month of May!
This month, efforts went toward completing the game’s cutscene system. The Steamed Hams parody posted on April Fool’s Day first showcased this cutscene system, but much has been added since then.
My first priority after getting the basic cutscene system working was to implement a cutscene trigger. In the Steamed Hams parody, the cutscenes automatically executed upon startup. This worked for the video, but it of course will not work for a playable game. To ensure seamless transitions between player input and predefined cutscenes, I created a trigger containing cutscene data that activates once the player steps into it, disabling player input while the cutscene is active.
Next, I implemented functions that weren’t required for the Steamed Hams parody but will be required for the final game. These include moving the camera, changing the music, fading the screen, and pausing (the Steamed Hams parody appeared to have pauses, but in actuality I set an object to move off-screen).
While the cutscene system was fully functional at this point, it looked like a mess in the inspector. In order to streamline the cutscene creation process, I wrote a custom editor that only displays necessary property fields (no need to see the Move properties if I’m currently working with a Pause command) and displays certain variables within the labels of expandable fields. I initially had some difficulty with learning how to incorporate lists into my custom editor, but a tutorial from Catlike Coding proved immensely helpful, giving me just what I needed to make this custom editor work.
Finally, now that the cutscene system supports screen fades, I figured I’d also have the screen fade when the player moves between doorways. A screen fade was seen in the Steamed Hams parody, but I merely applied this transition when editing the video. Now, screen fades occur directly in the game.
With work on the cutscene system complete (for now), I am shifting my focus to the game’s battle system. I don’t have much to reveal about it at the moment, but I’ll be sure to share more information as development continues, so stay tuned!
Alex Garbus 