iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - EXTRA As an addition to this update thread, I am currently writing these posts from San Francisco and will be attending #GDC this week. Come meet @perpetualpilot.bsky.social and I if you're here! We'd especially love to talk about #R2W and here what you're working on. Best Wishes!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 8/8 As we come to the end of our final sprint in the class we've been developing this for, I'm glad to say that the rest of @ghotigames.bsky.social and I intend to see this project through, at least for a little bit longer. Expect to see more updates if less regularly. Thank you all!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 7/8 But of course, the Shop segment must end too as you return to the Portalport. The timer system again can end your day, or you may simply decide to close up shop early after you've opened. A short evening at the storefront shown below.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 6/8 Moving on from the Portalport, the Shop is now looking beautiful with some upgrades as well. With NPCs courtesy of @wontonsoup99.bsky.social, I've integrated their shopping behavior into the existing potion-selling system. Every purchase helps that money counter tick up!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 5/8 Getting a playable game loop for a game with multiple levels often requires leaving levels. From the Portalport, you now enter your Shop for the evening after either every passenger has been inspected or the timer runs out. Thanks again @perpetualpilot.bsky.social for the visuals!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 4/8 Once bins reach the scanner, as always, you have to check your magical orb to inspect the contents closely. This orb now has functional UI and a new look inside. Thanks to @perpetualpilot.bsky.social for his work on the art!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 3/8 With bins looking better, it became time to add some passengers that would place those bins as well. While rudimentary, NPCs will spawn alongside their bins and move along to the body scanner once the next NPC comes along.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 2/8 Our Portalport section got a lot more love this update, with an upgrade to physics being a priority. No more floating items in bins, we now have items fall in using physics to create a natural look before re-freezing to smoothly move along the conveyor.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Sprint 4 - 1/8 Another 2 weeks, another sprint complete. As promised in the last update, short but sweet, there's now a full, working loop. Big thanks to @heathermarra.bsky.social and @sonyasambhu.bsky.social for finalizing the environments I'll be showcasing in here. #gamedev #indiedev #R2W

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 7/7 Great to finally close in on a working game loop; no matter the hours burnt on bug-fixing shelves. I've been careful to plan ahead in my blueprints, so once NPCs are finished, it hopefully won't be long until that vertical slice. Look forward to it. Fingers crossed. Thank you!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 6/7 With shop furniture finally out of the way, next we need to make some customers. While the shopper NPCs aren't quite functional yet, this has been my first exploration of behavior trees and AI pawns in Unreal. For now they just walk around in a set area, but look at 'em go!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 5/7 Shelves are nice and all, but what about pedestals for display? And maybe more importantly for a shop-running game, what about making your items sellable? Using the shelf system as a framework, pedestals showcase goods for sale and prompt players to set the item's price when placed.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 4/7 What's the point of bringing your stolen goods home with nowhere to put them? Next was a shelving blueprint revisit. Before there was an issue with removing items after placing them on the shelf in addition to some collision errors, but now it's an item to a slot and easy to remove.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 3/7 With our implemented gameplay loop on the horizon, the next priority became making it possible to move stolen luggage ingredients to different areas/levels. This became my first exposure to Unreal's game instance system as I made an ingredient inventory.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 2/7 First on the menu this sprint was a long overdue fix to our item pickup interaction. No longer do items cling to a specific point in front of your camera, now they are only as far away as their original location. Additionally, you can now scroll to move said items further and closer.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sprint 3 - 1/7 Another two weeks another sprint down. This time we're working towards having a vertical slice of the game, and while we're still a bit off, hopefully by next week I can post some clips from outside the Player Zoo walls. #gamedev #indiedev #R2W

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 6/6 While game jam and burnout made for a good few slow days this time around, I'm still proud of my teammates at Ghoti for hanging in there and of my conveyer gifs if nothing else of my own work (there's more, I just really like the gifs). Next sprint we're fighting with more energy!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 5/6 While our actual sellable potions have yet to be implemented (as much as our ingredient bottles may look potion-y), I still started work on our shelving system as well. The shelf blueprint is modularly scalable in-editor and spawns nodes on each shelf that hold our items.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 4/6 And the "Out with the old, in with the new" mentality didn't stop at newly programmed features, next I re-visited the ingredients system itself. No more floating 3D text, placeholder blocks, or blandness. The new ingredient BP is modular, outlines, and connects to your HUD.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 3/6 Still, we're here to dig through people's magical luggage and sniff out some good steals. Next I rigged up a system where interacting with a connected crystal ball brings you to a 3D viewer of the bin inside the luggage scanner where you can click on whatever you'd like to take!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 2/6 Of course, experimenting can only get you so far when there's a game to be made. My initial magic conveyer belt moved any relevant object that touched its invisible track, but I wanted something with more control. So, this lovely triggerable spawner was made. (Forgive the old gif)

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Sprint 2 - 1/6 Global Game Jam and all, the grind never stops. These past two weeks entailed another sprint and now another update thread. Though with less documentation in the way this time, I got to experiment with mechanics much more! #gamedev #indiedev #R2W

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Thank you so much! Great work on Clipped and congrats on that well-deserved award!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

4/4 Despite the difficulties, I had a blast pulling all-nighters and working on another project with the Ghoti folks and our other lovely jam members. And while there definitely could have been more done without the setbacks, I still learned plenty in my 48 hours. globalgamejam.org/games/2026/s...

globalgamejam.org

Frame Flips | Global Game Jam

You find yourself inside of one of your digital paintings, unable to escape the obstacles you have drawn. Use layer masks to hide objects from your painting in order to escape! Team Members: Angels Se...

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

3/4 Of course, not much went to plan and the data layer concept had to eventually be scrapped in favor of a 'tag' based system. This was necessary because there's no means of moving actors between layers at runtime as we wanted. A scrapped feature had players taping objects down between layers.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

2/4 As a the programmer of the team, I took the chance to learn data layers as a means of implementing our core 'mask' mechanic: swapping between the layer masks of a photo editing application to find secrets hidden. By using a post-processing filter and these data layers, players swap worlds.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

1/4 It was Global Game Jam this past weekend, and I got to participate this year with my team at Ghoti Games alongside some others. While it was a bit of a rough go, it was still a great experience and a great chance to learn some new things in Unreal. #globalgamejam #ggj #ggj26 #indiedev #gamedev

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 7, The End: With the sprint at it's end, there's plenty more I wish I'd done: unfinished features that'll wait until next sprint, a player zoo with more art in it, a lack of creator's block killing my workflow, etc.. Still, I'm happy to have a start and excited to see what else we'll do!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 6: Once it was time to make an executable, that also meant it was menu time. A simple Main Menu, Pause Menu, and Credits Screen really brings a game together you know?

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 5: You've already seen it in the background a few times now, but here's the point in the development process we got an actual blocked-out Player Zoo. In case you needed proof that I'm not one of the artists on our team, look at its glory a touch longer and you'll find it. Teleporters included!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 4: Most games discourage prop-flying, and yeah, I had to stop it from happening with the ingredients, but witches love a good (or in this case, terribly made) broomstick.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 3: Since I'm a programmer, I should probably show off some blueprints for you. These are the blueprints running ingredients and other interactable objects. Ingredients get handled by a physics handler after casting a ray out of the active camera and other objects trigger from a collider.

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 2: With base movement settled, I next turned to getting our item/ingredients started. Whether in first or third person, you can pick up whatever ingredients you're staring at and fling them around like there's no tomorrow. Plus, they're conveniently labelled!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Part 1: It's not a game without movement. First thing I did was set up some simple walk/run/crouch movement on a third-person character. Next, I rigged it up so that you can instantly swap between 1st and 3rd person with 'C.' The precision of FPV and the ability to see our character (in time)!

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Sprint 1 Thread: Every game project starts with the documentation, but if I showed it to you, that would spoil everything we have planned! I'm glad to have written it up early with @perpetualpilot.bsky.social and @sonyasambhu.bsky.social, but for now I'm just going to drip-feed what we have so far.

Classified written in red over screenshot of game documentation

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Dylan Parker @thatgamedevdylan.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Hey, that's me! Finally creating a Bluesky to keep a log of my work on this project (and possibly others 👀). I'll be uploading a slice of my work from our first Rags to Witches dev sprint a little later today so keep an eye out if you're interested!

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