Last week’s achievements

* Learned how to create and use tile maps with 2D Toolkit in Unity, including colliders
* Learned how to not have Unity distort 2D sprites on me with anti-aliasing or lossy quality or various other things (and by “learned how to” I mean flailed about like a Magikarp for a while until Kirb, the developer of 2D indie Metroidvania Dead Gear, explained how to))

Current focus

The transition to 2D.

Sample stuff

Using placeholder tiles from OpenGameArt.org for now, this is the current draft of the continent of Miharu in Unity! The real version will, of course, have proper-looking rivers, bridges, some rounded coasts, probably triangular coasts, and most of all it’ll be a 16-bit aesthetic instead of 8-bit!

Showing it off at this scale is a bit small, so here‘s a full-resolution version of an earlier draft. If you squint, this continent kind of looks like a three-leaf clover; if you squint even harder, it looks kind of like a bird. I’ll probably play up one of those elements further!

Weekly goals

* Figure out how to use 2D Toolkit (and other Unity assets if needed) to get basic top-down map movement functional
* When character design rounds resume, those become top priority

Comments

Three steps down, more to go! Before top-down map movement can be functional, collision detection needs to be functional; before collision detection can be functional, top-down maps (AKA stuff to collide with) need to exist; before top-down maps can exist, sprites need to look pixel perfect.

With those three issues resolved, there are still at least three more factors: character animation, character movement, and camera movement. It’s slightly concerning that Kirb said it took him nearly a year to get his 2D aspects fully working, but for now I’m hopeful that it won’t be the same story with me since a 2D action platformer has more complex physics than a 2D RPG. Besides, there’s another self-professed Unity newbie who managed to get an extremely basic RPG pretty functional within three and a half months, so I’ve got to keep up here. =P