A Turret's Life is a first person arcade shooter/tower defence game for PC and VR where you are the tower defending an area against the endless onslaught of attacking robots and crafting overpowered dream guns that can be traded as crypto-backed items.

Updates

This was a bit of a slower week for me and I did not manage to get as many things done this week. I apologize :(. Life kept getting in the way, but no matter what I will keep powering through!

Crafting Mechanics: Things returned back into the usual programming role, as I continued working on the crafting system, notably the actual grid where you assemble your different turret parts together.

Art: Some of the concept art has come though and overall I like the results. Please read on to see some pieces!

Progress

Art

When I commissioned this art I asked to go for some more colors and more light. I think I do quite like these pieces, though they might be a tad too stylized now. That said, ultimately they are just concept art to get the general idea for the 3D artist to create them. So I think between the main art piece and these ones that should hit the mark for the art design. What do you guys think?

Below I've included some of my favorite pieces.

A Door
A Computer Screen
Containers

Placement Grid

As I mentioned last week, the crafting is essentially like virtual Lego, in which each module has its own shape configuration that must be assembled together in a space-efficient manor. As I expected, this is turning out to be quite the system as a whole bunch of different interdependent parts must come together to make it. It reminds me of the Hydra of Greek Mythology, but instead of chopping off heads it's code where I start one section and two more appear from it... Some of the tasks included conversions between the world space and a grid coordinate system, creating ways to represent how each grid cell stores the information on the module etc. Huh, it's funny how all these seemingly bland (depending on your perspective ;) ) technical aspects come together to create enjoyable gameplay!

One of the more productive aspects this week was the creation of a simple tool that I can use to visually design and save the different configurations of the modules. Although it was a detraction from the main focus, it will make things so much easier in the future. I also really enjoy the times when I get to create custom solutions to problems. One of the things that saddens me the most in Game Programming is that there is nothing left to invent or find out for yourself anymore, so I cherish these opportunities. Of course, that could probably be said about most things nowadays but that is another topic in and of itself haha.

Over the course of this week I will continue working on the placement grid system. There are some more math-heavy aspects coming up plus some optimization techniques to implement, but I will save those for next blog :)

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Website: https://www.aturretslife.com/

Telegram: https://t.me/aturretslife

That's a wrap for this week; see you all soon!