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6:32am - Well, here I am. I've been in turmoil since my last work post, since I'm not sure what I want to do with myself at this point. With my roomie and close friend having a fight with the friend I was making that prototype for, and them burning bridges, I don't feel like I want to work on that anymore. :/
But I also don't feel like I want to work on the colony sim prototype I was making for my roomie the month before that. So what do?
Yesterday I had a dream about a 2D sidescroller, and I was thinking about trying that. Right now I either need to talk myself into it, or out of it.
I don't think it's a good idea, for a start. I mean, I like 2D platformers, but I'm not THAT into them. I already own Mario Maker 2 and it would take me like, a year, to emulate all the features of that in my game, just counting the gameplay features. I also don't have a gimmick. I guess I have a story idea or two, but story does not a video game make.
I don't have a real strong need or want to make a game like that, either. I just have a whim from waking up after a dream. It's not like it's likely to continue indefinately, and then there'll be an end before the project is done.
I think I just needed to get into the right headspace to think clearly about it, and writing into this blog puts me in that right headspace.
So then, what else can I do?
One thing that's been bouncing around my head as I write this is a 2D action adventure trading game. Something like the game I imagined when I first played Seiken Densetsu 3. Way back then, I saw the towns, and the spaces between them, and I felt like I was on a trip to see the world and trade goods along the way. I don't know what gave me that feeling; it wasn't what the game was about at all! The game's sequel, Legend of Mana, had a traveling merchant as one of the characters you could play, but the areas in that game's world weren't connected the way they were in SD3.
Another game I've been thinking about lately but keep dismissing is the 'Space Trader' game, I've been thinking about doing it in different styles to get over my issues with the scifi/space genre. One idea I had was to make it set in 'Computer Space', where everything is a simulation. But there's logical issues with that too. :P
Really the most sensible thing to do would be to make it in the period or something like that period in history where the fantasy was real. There's a series of games, Patrician and Port Royale, which simulate the development of a trading empire in northern europe and the caribbean respectfully. I could skip the realism and throw in whatever I wanted if I set it in a fantasy setting.
There's a huge difference between a game like Patrician and a game like X4:Foundations though. The space sim has 3 Dimensions, after all. Well, it should. Some games drop the third...
I think it would be interesting to make a fantasy trade sim. First though I'd need to decide on the mechanics. Can't even make a prototype if you don't know what kind of game you're making!
I could make a game like Patrician where the game is about managing shipping networks, but I think I want it to be more personal, with a clearly defined player character moving through the world. There's also the Sid Meier's Pirates! approach where your player character is your ship, but I'm thinking more like the earlier game I mentioned. Give it a 2D adventure game feel, like Seiken Densetsu or Legend of Zelda, but the game's theme is wandering and trading. Of course there's no reason I couldn't do it as a 2D platformer as well. The ideas are fighting in my head right now. Top down adventure or 2D platformer?
Well let's examine the other gameplay elements we want to try and see which style is more suitable.
7:37am - Well I ended up getting distracted by things, mostly twitter, but now back to this!
The basics would be a series of interconnected towns where you can buy low and sell high, and the spaces between them. I'm thinking overland wilderness, mostly. But what about shipping? By ships I mean. I'm not sure how that would work when your main means of moving around is on foot, and we want to keep a sense of persistance.
Then there's other traders and couriers and things. How would they work? It wouldn't be a game if you didn't have challenge. Should there be monsters between the towns? Of course probably...
I'm thinking the player starts by taking courier jobs, taking things from one place to another for some kind of guild, and once they make enough money they can start buying and selling trade goods, and eventually they can have their own couriers, but there'll always be room for moving between the towns yourself.
7:49am - And now I'm thinking about eggs. Like, eating them. I'm hungry. I'm trying to decide if I should go out to a restaurant or a grocery store. I checked and there are a couple grocery stores open already, and others opening in a few minutes. I could get some eggs and cook them myself... Rob's been hogging the eggs and frypan, not cleaning the frypan when he's done because I almost never use it anymore. So I don't know if I want to bother buying and cooking eggs. We have eggs of course, but they're for Rob's breakfast. And I probably wouldn't use all the eggs if I bought them, unless I did...
Of course I went for breakfast to a restaurant yesterday morning, and the morning before that, and I can't keep this up. :/
It's frustrating having to budget for food.
On the restaurant side, they'll have things I can't make at home easily, like bacon and potatos. If I was going to make something other than eggs it would be fried fish from the freezer.
Bleh. Restaurant it is. I'll worry about buying eggs tomorrow if I still want to so much.
I'll leave this Work Post open and get back to it when I get home. In the mean time I'll try to think more about the trading game.
9:00am - Alright I'm back from breakfast and feeling better.
So I'm thinking I can add Sea Voyages in after I have the prototype done, and for the prototype I'll mostly focus on the intercity trade mechanics and maybe some monsters in the middle.
Let's look at what we've got so far:
Cities on a fantasy continent, seperated by distance and monsters, require brave adventurers to serve as couriers and traders between the towns.
I'm trying to decide if the player will have a cart or just a big backpack, and will they put it down when they enter combat, or use it? I remember back in Ragnarok Online they had a trader class who would use their cart for combat by spinning it around, but that would probably break your goods and reduce immersion.
Oh here's an idea, you could be pulling your cart and when combat starts you put it down and have to defend it! That might be interesting.
9:22am - I've tried to start conversations on Discord about this game idea. We'll see if anyone makes any useful suggestions I can usefully borrow.
While that's going on in the background, I'll keep trying to brainstorm.
So we've got a cart pulling player, and when you're traveling the wilderness, monsters or banditos might attack. How should that go? Wandering monsters on screen? Hidden monsters that pop out of bushes when you're near? I'm not sure.
Likewise, should there be an option to run from monsters, or must you fight them? I think you should have to fight, since you can't move as fast when you're pulling your cart. But then that could add up to a lot of fighting.
So I'm thinking, there will be a few encounters on your path between towns, and when you reach them you automatically put your cart down, and you have to defend it. To mix things up, there is a chance for good or neutral encounters too! Or no encounter...
I think it would also be good if things like the weather and world state changed the odds of different events. So maybe there's a bandit clan on this road, lots of possibilities for bandito encounters. But not so much on a rainy day, 'cause banditos hate the rain too. And maybe if you take the same route too many times, banditos would learn where you'll be and plan for it, to encourage you to take different routes.
I was thinking earlier that you might want to set up a trading empire, but now I'm thinking that might ruin things, if you go from one gameplay style, traveling between towns defending your cart, to another, sitting in an office in one town managing all your workers. So we'll skip that part and just have the player stay in the traveling cart hauler stage.
It's starting to look like something I can turn into a prototype. I'll start by making the basic engine on top of Godot's usual engine, so I can have top down adventure style gameplay. Then I'll make the world with two towns and three routes between them. Then I'll make encounters. That should be enough to see if this is fun.
9:56am - Great! Way to go me. Finally have something to do again.
Now I'm going to look for some ideas and help on YouTube, before digging into it myself.
11:17am - I've gone ahead and started the basic development of the prototype. I've got a moving player and a tilemap setup to give me some levels. I've started building the first town, which I called Capetown. It's basically just a box with two doors and an exit to the routes. But it got me thinking about how I'll design things.
I figure I can make the towns as one scene, with the different areas connected by teleports that are more than a screensize away from oneanother so the player doesn't see the boundaries. But what about the routes?
I was thinking there would be splits in the routes between the towns that you would travel down organically. Like, you leave town A through the gate, and there's no menu, you're just in the wilderness. Then while you're out there, there are splits in the path, and then you're on a different route. But how to handle that?
I could make it so that there's a little wild area connected to each town with the start of every route, but I was hoping to have the routes crisscross, too.
Another thing I could do is develop subroutes. So, like for my prototype, instead of developing just three routes between the two towns, I make five routes. Two that split into three and join back up at the end. That could work.
11:48am - Alright so I'm thinking I'll do inter-scene jumps with a sort of passover token system. When a player moves into a 'teleport' area, it'll load the next scene and place the player at a certain target location. That should work!
11:53am - I think I've done enough for this morning. I'm going to play a video game for a while.
But I also don't feel like I want to work on the colony sim prototype I was making for my roomie the month before that. So what do?
Yesterday I had a dream about a 2D sidescroller, and I was thinking about trying that. Right now I either need to talk myself into it, or out of it.
I don't think it's a good idea, for a start. I mean, I like 2D platformers, but I'm not THAT into them. I already own Mario Maker 2 and it would take me like, a year, to emulate all the features of that in my game, just counting the gameplay features. I also don't have a gimmick. I guess I have a story idea or two, but story does not a video game make.
I don't have a real strong need or want to make a game like that, either. I just have a whim from waking up after a dream. It's not like it's likely to continue indefinately, and then there'll be an end before the project is done.
I think I just needed to get into the right headspace to think clearly about it, and writing into this blog puts me in that right headspace.
So then, what else can I do?
One thing that's been bouncing around my head as I write this is a 2D action adventure trading game. Something like the game I imagined when I first played Seiken Densetsu 3. Way back then, I saw the towns, and the spaces between them, and I felt like I was on a trip to see the world and trade goods along the way. I don't know what gave me that feeling; it wasn't what the game was about at all! The game's sequel, Legend of Mana, had a traveling merchant as one of the characters you could play, but the areas in that game's world weren't connected the way they were in SD3.
Another game I've been thinking about lately but keep dismissing is the 'Space Trader' game, I've been thinking about doing it in different styles to get over my issues with the scifi/space genre. One idea I had was to make it set in 'Computer Space', where everything is a simulation. But there's logical issues with that too. :P
Really the most sensible thing to do would be to make it in the period or something like that period in history where the fantasy was real. There's a series of games, Patrician and Port Royale, which simulate the development of a trading empire in northern europe and the caribbean respectfully. I could skip the realism and throw in whatever I wanted if I set it in a fantasy setting.
There's a huge difference between a game like Patrician and a game like X4:Foundations though. The space sim has 3 Dimensions, after all. Well, it should. Some games drop the third...
I think it would be interesting to make a fantasy trade sim. First though I'd need to decide on the mechanics. Can't even make a prototype if you don't know what kind of game you're making!
I could make a game like Patrician where the game is about managing shipping networks, but I think I want it to be more personal, with a clearly defined player character moving through the world. There's also the Sid Meier's Pirates! approach where your player character is your ship, but I'm thinking more like the earlier game I mentioned. Give it a 2D adventure game feel, like Seiken Densetsu or Legend of Zelda, but the game's theme is wandering and trading. Of course there's no reason I couldn't do it as a 2D platformer as well. The ideas are fighting in my head right now. Top down adventure or 2D platformer?
Well let's examine the other gameplay elements we want to try and see which style is more suitable.
7:37am - Well I ended up getting distracted by things, mostly twitter, but now back to this!
The basics would be a series of interconnected towns where you can buy low and sell high, and the spaces between them. I'm thinking overland wilderness, mostly. But what about shipping? By ships I mean. I'm not sure how that would work when your main means of moving around is on foot, and we want to keep a sense of persistance.
Then there's other traders and couriers and things. How would they work? It wouldn't be a game if you didn't have challenge. Should there be monsters between the towns? Of course probably...
I'm thinking the player starts by taking courier jobs, taking things from one place to another for some kind of guild, and once they make enough money they can start buying and selling trade goods, and eventually they can have their own couriers, but there'll always be room for moving between the towns yourself.
7:49am - And now I'm thinking about eggs. Like, eating them. I'm hungry. I'm trying to decide if I should go out to a restaurant or a grocery store. I checked and there are a couple grocery stores open already, and others opening in a few minutes. I could get some eggs and cook them myself... Rob's been hogging the eggs and frypan, not cleaning the frypan when he's done because I almost never use it anymore. So I don't know if I want to bother buying and cooking eggs. We have eggs of course, but they're for Rob's breakfast. And I probably wouldn't use all the eggs if I bought them, unless I did...
Of course I went for breakfast to a restaurant yesterday morning, and the morning before that, and I can't keep this up. :/
It's frustrating having to budget for food.
On the restaurant side, they'll have things I can't make at home easily, like bacon and potatos. If I was going to make something other than eggs it would be fried fish from the freezer.
Bleh. Restaurant it is. I'll worry about buying eggs tomorrow if I still want to so much.
I'll leave this Work Post open and get back to it when I get home. In the mean time I'll try to think more about the trading game.
9:00am - Alright I'm back from breakfast and feeling better.
So I'm thinking I can add Sea Voyages in after I have the prototype done, and for the prototype I'll mostly focus on the intercity trade mechanics and maybe some monsters in the middle.
Let's look at what we've got so far:
Cities on a fantasy continent, seperated by distance and monsters, require brave adventurers to serve as couriers and traders between the towns.
I'm trying to decide if the player will have a cart or just a big backpack, and will they put it down when they enter combat, or use it? I remember back in Ragnarok Online they had a trader class who would use their cart for combat by spinning it around, but that would probably break your goods and reduce immersion.
Oh here's an idea, you could be pulling your cart and when combat starts you put it down and have to defend it! That might be interesting.
9:22am - I've tried to start conversations on Discord about this game idea. We'll see if anyone makes any useful suggestions I can usefully borrow.
While that's going on in the background, I'll keep trying to brainstorm.
So we've got a cart pulling player, and when you're traveling the wilderness, monsters or banditos might attack. How should that go? Wandering monsters on screen? Hidden monsters that pop out of bushes when you're near? I'm not sure.
Likewise, should there be an option to run from monsters, or must you fight them? I think you should have to fight, since you can't move as fast when you're pulling your cart. But then that could add up to a lot of fighting.
So I'm thinking, there will be a few encounters on your path between towns, and when you reach them you automatically put your cart down, and you have to defend it. To mix things up, there is a chance for good or neutral encounters too! Or no encounter...
I think it would also be good if things like the weather and world state changed the odds of different events. So maybe there's a bandit clan on this road, lots of possibilities for bandito encounters. But not so much on a rainy day, 'cause banditos hate the rain too. And maybe if you take the same route too many times, banditos would learn where you'll be and plan for it, to encourage you to take different routes.
I was thinking earlier that you might want to set up a trading empire, but now I'm thinking that might ruin things, if you go from one gameplay style, traveling between towns defending your cart, to another, sitting in an office in one town managing all your workers. So we'll skip that part and just have the player stay in the traveling cart hauler stage.
It's starting to look like something I can turn into a prototype. I'll start by making the basic engine on top of Godot's usual engine, so I can have top down adventure style gameplay. Then I'll make the world with two towns and three routes between them. Then I'll make encounters. That should be enough to see if this is fun.
9:56am - Great! Way to go me. Finally have something to do again.
Now I'm going to look for some ideas and help on YouTube, before digging into it myself.
11:17am - I've gone ahead and started the basic development of the prototype. I've got a moving player and a tilemap setup to give me some levels. I've started building the first town, which I called Capetown. It's basically just a box with two doors and an exit to the routes. But it got me thinking about how I'll design things.
I figure I can make the towns as one scene, with the different areas connected by teleports that are more than a screensize away from oneanother so the player doesn't see the boundaries. But what about the routes?
I was thinking there would be splits in the routes between the towns that you would travel down organically. Like, you leave town A through the gate, and there's no menu, you're just in the wilderness. Then while you're out there, there are splits in the path, and then you're on a different route. But how to handle that?
I could make it so that there's a little wild area connected to each town with the start of every route, but I was hoping to have the routes crisscross, too.
Another thing I could do is develop subroutes. So, like for my prototype, instead of developing just three routes between the two towns, I make five routes. Two that split into three and join back up at the end. That could work.
11:48am - Alright so I'm thinking I'll do inter-scene jumps with a sort of passover token system. When a player moves into a 'teleport' area, it'll load the next scene and place the player at a certain target location. That should work!
11:53am - I think I've done enough for this morning. I'm going to play a video game for a while.
