This is more concept art for a protagonist in the new project called The Gap. Okapi Boy – I have always loved Okapi’s. They are shy and remained hidden from the world in the deepest parts of the jungle until they were discovered in the 50’s. Beautiful Zebra like patterns on skin like a Deer. This is a deeply peaceful animal with large soulful eyes. He dreams and offers advice but you have to seek him out and finding him is not always easy or straightforward. In The Gap you get the chance to play as the Okapi for part of the story.

There used to be a great example of this rare creature in the Melbourne Museum Taxidermy collection (which I used to love but has now sadly been taken off the exhibit floor). You can take a virtual tour of the old “Wild” exhibition here.

I have a LOT more concept art to do as I want to get a very clear picture of my characters before I start modelling.

I also stared working on the programming for the game. One element I want to include in the story is a “mini-game” called Fox and Geese. It’s played on a chess board and was one of the first games I remember my dad teaching me how to play. It’s pretty straightforward and uses a chess board and pawns. Four white pawns are the Geese who can only move forward and diagonally one row at a time. The Fox is a black pawn that can move diagonally one space at a time in any direction. Moves are taken in turn and the aim of the game is for either the Fox to break the line of Geese or the Geese to “capture” the Fox so that he cannot move.

It’s early days yet with only the board set up and pawn selection scripts started but it was actually pretty fun setting up the programming that took care of the board. When you learn programming you get to do lots of arrays and nothing screams “ARRAY” like a chess board. So it’s kind of nice to use one of those basic skills that you use in all programming in such a nice simple example. You get to add a little interest to the basic array with the inclusion of alternating colours. Here is the code below:

using UnityEngine;

public class FnG_MakeBoard : MonoBehaviour
{
    public GameObject boardPiece;
    public Vector3[] positions;

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        positions = new Vector3[64];
        float start_x_pos = -1.75f;
        float start_y_pos = -1.75f;
        float rowcount = 0f;
        float linecount = 0f;


        for (int i = 0; i < positions.Length; i++)
        {
            positions[i] = new Vector3(start_x_pos, start_y_pos, 0f);
            start_x_pos += 0.5f;
            rowcount += 1;

            if (rowcount == 8)
            {
                start_x_pos = -1.75f;
                start_y_pos += 0.5f;
                rowcount = 0f;
                linecount++;
            }

            Instantiate(boardPiece, positions[i], Quaternion.identity);
            Color32 myRed = new Color32(185, 48, 48, 255);
            Color32 myGray = new Color32(106, 106, 106, 255);
            if (i % 2 == 0)
            {
                if (linecount % 2 == 0)
                {
                    boardPiece.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().color = myGray;
                }
                if (linecount % 2 != 0)
                {
                    boardPiece.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().color = myRed;
                }
            }
            if (i % 2 != 0)
            {
                if (linecount % 2 == 0)
                {
                    boardPiece.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().color = myRed;
                }
                if (linecount % 2 != 0)
                {
                    boardPiece.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().color = myGray;
                }
            }
        }
    }