4000 POUNDS

This week I added multiple types of pigeons.  This was more work than it seems, as I sorta overhauled the sprite-loading process first.  As for the pigeons themselves, I basically took the same graphics and did some color tinting on them.  Not very creative, I know, but they’re still placeholders.

But that’s not all I did.  I also added another character to the game.  Beware the unbeatable terrier:

WOOF WOOF!!

Okay, technically the dog was already partly implemented, but there was no animation or intelligence to it.

Next week: I will be adding a “game over” screen which shows the player’s score.  Also I’m going to add scoring.  I’d also like to work on some background art, instead of the plain gray background.  Also, I want to work on adding sound/music.  Not the actual sound/music of the finished game, just the implementation with some sample sounds for now.

Latest update:

• I’ve added to the animation logic so that pigeons flap their wings when they fly away.  The art still needs work, but the logic is in place now.  That said, I’m considering replacing it with “models” and keyframe animations, but that’ll come if and when I need it.
• Enemy pigeons retaliate.  So if the player scares them off too much, they’ll start attacking the player back.  Of course, there is no damage in this game – they can’t hurt you – but getting scared off the screen temporarily makes it hard to keep eating food.

Gameplay animation:

And enemy pigeons dishing it back:

This next week, I’m going to be working on adding a variety of pigeon types (which adds some complexity to enemy pigeon retaliation).  It’ll probably just be the same graphics with a color filter for now, the goal will eventually be to have different artwork for each pigeon type.  I might have another surprise, if I have time.

I added some basic food-finding AI.  Nothing too sophisticated, it just loops through an array looking for active food that is nearby, if it finds something close enough it breaks out of the loop and goes for it.

The problem is, now the crowded wave just got a lot harder…

Didn’t finish the wing-flapping animation for when the player flies away, but I did implement a walking animation.  It’s not a finished product, but I’m pretty happy with it so far.  You can see it in the short animation below.

Also you’ll see I finished adding a simple particle effect, so that when you scare other pigeons away, they drop feathers:

I also did some not-so-obvious work, specifically cleaning up and rearranging some code.  I fixed an error with the head rotation that caused it to spin the wrong way sometimes.  No more Exorcist pigeons.

So my plan for this next week is to finish the animation logic (even if the animations themselves aren’t complete), and add pigeon retaliation.

A little better sample of in-game mechanics.  I also added better graphics for the food:

Going to be working on better animation this next week (not just head bobbing – body should move when walking, wings should flap when flying, etc.).