Zak OlyarnikFeb 5, 20194 minA* and the Space Cows: AI (Part I)I cleverly avoided doing anything AI-related on my senior project, and before that, the most complex thing I had tackled was the...
Zak OlyarnikJan 26, 20192 minMap-MakingOne of the things I'm most proud of in ACF is my map generation algorithm. At its most basic, each planet map is a square tile grid,...
Zak OlyarnikJan 20, 20192 minFiller ContentI've been taking it a little easy in the wake of Alpha; just one more game mode and some playtest-feedback-driven bug fixes over the...
Zak OlyarnikJan 15, 20191 minAlpha Build is Live!...And I promise it was done yesterday, but I had some unexpected problems with the build and distribution, so I left this announcement...
Zak OlyarnikJan 10, 20193 minAlpha Build Announcement and The Importance of Knowing EverythingI've spent the entirety of the last two days hunting down the nastiest bug I've had to face on this project (edging out the second...
Zak OlyarnikJan 2, 20193 minNew Year's UpdateThere's no such thing as a holiday for a computer scientist. I've been a tenacious little monkey here at the end of 2018, and I just...
Zak OlyarnikDec 23, 20184 minOptimization TricksPre-Alpha launched last week, but I spent all of this one trying to solve lingering performance issues. When I first made the web build,...
Zak OlyarnikDec 14, 20181 minBlasting Off!Alien Cow Farm is now live! I'd recommend doing the download for the best performance, and please don't forget to fill out the gameplay...
Zak OlyarnikDec 8, 20181 minPre-Alpha Coming 12/14/18That's right, ladies and gents, the first public release of Alien Cow Farm is dropping in just one week! ...Which means that I'll be...
Zak OlyarnikNov 29, 20183 minThe Road to Pre-AlphaAfter the art issues which I'm coping with, the next biggest obstacle for me as a single-person studio was always going to be the actual...
Zak OlyarnikNov 23, 20182 minPurple Planet Art GalleryToday I wanted to share some of the models I've been busy creating for the game's first map, Purple Planet (working name). Level design...
Zak OlyarnikNov 15, 20184 minButton Animation: Menu UI (Part IV)When you set a button's transition method to "Animation", Unity automatically creates an animator with all of the default states and all...
Zak OlyarnikNov 13, 20184 minOpen Sesame: Menu UI (Part III)The Unity animator is probably the most confusing thing I've delved into so far, so I'm going to try and go slow while I explain it. ...
Zak OlyarnikNov 10, 20183 minPlayer Select: Menu UI (Part II)Alien Cow Farm is a game for 1-4 players, which has already presented some challenges when it comes to gameplay. But it also meant...
Zak OlyarnikNov 7, 20184 minPressing Buttons: Menu UI (Part I)I had two very specific ideas for the menus in my game. First, I wanted everything to be set up like the player was looking at a...
Zak OlyarnikNov 1, 20184 minAnd Another Thing: Modeling and Materials (Part III) I'm still collecting my thoughts about menu UI and animations (topics which have occupied so much of my time recently that I've been...
Zak OlyarnikOct 24, 20184 minSplitscreenI knew from the start that I wanted Alien Cow Farm to be a couch-co-op multiplayer game, which meant it needed splitscreen. Unity makes...
Zak OlyarnikOct 21, 20183 minDesigning UI For Any Aspect RatioI have long struggled with Unity's UI system. It's been designed to make it easy to support multiple resolutions simultaneously, through...
Zak OlyarnikOct 18, 20183 minHow to Skin a Cow: Modeling and Materials (Part II)As I mentioned last time, the second big problem with creating a game entirely out of Unity's default primitive assets is one of...
Zak OlyarnikOct 14, 20183 minBumping Into Things: Modeling and Materials (Part I)I am not an artist; you should just trust me on that. Since Alien Cow Farm is still a solo project (for now), the original plan for all...