Move-Techs, Networking & Networking
Dashing and Backflipping showcase.
I’d added dashing and backflipping to add just a bit more to the player’s movement, this way the player could perform a little bit of technical platforming in some of the levels, alongside the direction swapping feature. Beyond that, I got the new business cards printed at Staples with the new business name on it, and met up with my friend Marcus to look them over and hand them out to people.
CosmoLair Business Card, first revision
Featuring two backsides, featuring two of the Astral Styx poster designs. The frontside is a horizontal info card featuring a QR Code.
(Note: The QR Code has already been deactivated and will later be replaced.)
The following day, I’d brought someone new into the project! His name is Hamilton, and he’s helping me with the online functionality of the project. We’d picked Nakama to be the framework we’d use to support our project, as it’s free, open-source, scalable, and already comes with much of the things we’re looking for. Hamilton and I also went a bit deeper into the vision of the project and its documentation while also adjusting the way my team will be using GitHub, since I’ve only really had the most experience with Perforce, it was good to have someone more familiar with Git to help me out regarding that. Hamilton, much like Ben, has been needing a reason to actually sit down and go into Unreal. Hamilton has experience as a full-stack developer, which is very helpful since he can see things that I cannot when it comes to most things IT-related.
Getting my hands on the Nakama features within Unreal was a treat, especially since they actually have just about all of the features we need included in their plugin’s Blueprint tools. I’d followed the steps Nakama’s Unreal documentation had to offer and set up an authentication section of the main menu, and verified that it can connect to the server running on my laptop through Docker(another great application that Hamilton recommended to me) and let the user register and log in. When Marcus stopped by and I showed him the login screen, we had fun playing around, making whatever accounts and deleting or banning them. It’s the little things that can really change the experience.
Account Registration Screen
Using Nakama, it is eassy to set up authentication, account creation and logins!
User Details
The online player is given a User ID as well as a Username of their choice. We may include a Display Name feature if we find it to be desired.
I’m really grateful that I’ve been able to gather a team who I can depend on as well as serve. I’d spent much of my time as an indie game developer working alone. When I got into Full Sail to study game design and worked with others, I felt like I may have come off as standoffish. It may have been because it felt like I was always having to do more, whether to make up for where my team had lacked, or because I took pride in building solid experiences for games. This time, it feels like I can be confident in letting others do the work that I can’t stretch myself out to do.
