First and foremost. 

I am a very unconventional game dev, and through these devlogs you will see a bunch of workarounds, cheap tricks, and things that will probably make you want to pull your hair out.

With that being said, one of the first very unconventional things I decided to do, is create 3D games using Construct 2, a primarily 2D game engine. 

I did this for a few reasons. Mostly, I am already familiar with Construct 2 having made several games with it. I started using Construct the same reason most people do. I have no desire to formally learn coding. Although I still have to know bits and pieces to get a grasp on some aspects of design. 

Last month I purchased a plug-in for construct called Q3D that allows you to create 3D games within this 2D engine. And it turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. 

So what you will see here is my Construct 2 + Q3D Workflow. Q3D is also a little more advanced than what I am used to, so you will see some cringey work arounds in that department as well. 

So, after downloading Q3D, I joined the HauntedPS1 Game Jam that lasted 48hours. It was a crash course for me, and I managed to pump out a tiny little horror game (FORMLESS) which you can check out on my page.

After that, I still hadn't scratched my game dev itch, so I went to work with a concept that was vaguely in my head at the time.  A game where you cruise around endless Oceanside docks, going from shanty to shanty solving puzzles. After a day of playing around I came up with a basic design to build off of.

Now that the juices were flowing, I started going to work just building the first section of the level. Making large expanses of docks and shanty like, out buildings. Brainstorming how I can fill this area will cool puzzles, and thinking about different environment models. I'm thinking plenty of boxes, barrels, boats, ropes, fishing gear, tables, blood, ect. 

Another thing I was sure of was that I needed steps. I wanted certain docks to be higher than others to add more depth to the game. I had no Idea how to create this transition in Q3D. So I played around for hours creating triggers that would place my player in a different Z position. I had to have the collisions right so that the player could travel both up AND down the stairs. But I managed to create the effect, although the character moving from one Z position to the next is VERY rough, I kind of like it. 

Meanwhile, I was trying to determine if I wanted this game to have any battle or just be a straight forward puzzle game.  I managed to implement your usual WASD control movements (I only had W to walk forward in my last game) and decided to make a model to see what it would look like to have a gun. 

I liked it. So it was clear I was going to make this an FPS Survival Horror. I was pretty sure that I wanted the time period to be late 1890's or early 1900's so I had to loose the shitty looking glock and switched to a revolver. 

Much better!

I'm using Blender to create my models. I have ZERO experience and just started using the program a month ago. Luckily for me, I am making a PS1 style game and my models can get away with looking pretty bad when compared to today's games. 

Where I am at today.

Right now, besides building the world, I am currently in the process of switching my models from .obj to .json since the .obj models don't allow the same kind of texture wrapping and animations (no animations actually) inside of Q3D. It's proving to be tricky, but I think I can manage it. 

I can't seem to pull myself away from this game so I think it won't be too many months before I complete it. I will update this devlog. 

As of this moment I am drawing my inspiration from several games: Cursed Mountain, Silent Hill 4, Kings Field,  among others. I hope to create a really cool retro Survival Horror game when all is said and done.