Game Devlog #1 - Hello World!

Hey everyone!

You might be wondering what I've been up to these past 2 weeks since I haven't posted a new animation. Well, as the title of the post has already spoiled, I've officially started putting work on the game I've wanted to make for a while.

I really really really wanted to have a functional demo to share along with this post, but programming proved to be waaaaay too time consuming for that (specially the netcode for the multiplayer, but I'll talk more about that below). So in this post I'll give a project overview, talk about the code I've already implemented, discuss my inspirations and which direction I'll want to take this entire thing on from now on.

If you're interested in that stuff, then read on! If not, know that I'll be making a new animation this week as normal, and then plan on working on the game about every other week (so roughly one week will have a new pic, then the other will have a new devlog/game update. this is a bit of a flexible schedule tho!)

The Project

If you remember some of the work I had put on SHH, then basically this will be the "refined" idea that came from that concept. I've decided to scrap the "managing a hotel" aspect of it since it felt too restrictive, and in place of that I have come up with a more concrete project outline.

As of right now the game has no name! This is definitely a thing I'll have to think about in the future, but to be honest isn't really a high priority item on my list.

For the game's concept, I have decided to make it into a simulation/dating simulator hybrid. With the main inspirations for the project being the Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon games (in particular, Friends of Mineral Town). From AC I really want to capture the carefree game loop that's focused on player expression and interacting with villagers, while from HM I'd like to borrow the concepts that the game world consists of a pre-established town and a more open "player area" where you are free to shape as you see fit, as well as some of the relationship mechanics like heart events and etc (I'm still on the fence if I'd like to make farming into the main focus of the game though, I have to think about that)

That should basically cover the main "feel" the game would have, specially in terms of controls and stuff. There are many subsystems that can be added to a game like this, such as base building, farming, calendar events, cooking/crafting and etc, so we have a lot of room to grow the game horizontally in the future and shape it how we want it to be.

I would also really like to have the game be fully multiplayer friendly by the way! And speaking of that, we should start talking about

What's been done already

So, I have already coded a lot of the really basic foundation stuff we'll be needing. The boring stuff like save management, display management, sound management, basic menu functionality (I SPENT SO MUCH TIME CODING MY TEXT INPUT BOXES OMG), input management and last but not least, network management

I had never tried to come up with a whole client/server architecture from scratch AND LET ME TELL YOU, SHIT'S HARD hahahahahaha. I have gotten my fair share of chest pains just trying to code it all correctly

It's mostly done at this point though. I just need to fix a few more bugs with entity interpolation and movement prediction and all that good stuff. Entity syncing from server to client already works beautifully, we just need to fix some bugs when it's the other way around

In terms of drawn assets, I have come up with an initial version of the character's base sprite. With the next step being creating alternatives and details and recolors and stuff, so we can try to have an actual character creator setup soon. I've also dealt with some font stuff and basic menu look (the latter which I haven't put into the engine yet) so we're going kinda ok in that front too

In Conclusion

What I wanted to have finished by now? A base character creator, which you could them take on a really basic map to walk around in, and be able to try it out on multiplayer too

What I actually ended up with? A main menu in which you can setup all the basic settings of the game, and then a completely black game world that you can try in multiplayer, but you're only able to move little green boxes around. Nowhere near as fun, but with a lot of the groundwork done to allow for stuff to be built on top

I'd definitely say that in terms of scope this might be the biggest programming task I've tried so far. I have something close to 60 different functions right now and what must be nearing a thousand lines of code at this point. This is just the beginning and I don't know if it makes me more excited or scared hahahaha

Anyway, this is where I'll leave you guys in this first devlog. Next time I'll try to have some pictures for you to look at inbetween my rambles hahaha.

I do want to hear your guy's thoughts about this whole thing btw! There's a bunch of stuff I have thought about and planned to do that I couldn't share here, but there's also so so much I haven't even considered so far! I definitely would love to hear ideas on how we can proceed with the project, what kinds of gameplay I should focus on (of course, aside from just the basic talking to villagers and then fucking them) and etc. If you have good ideas, this is the time to throw them at me!

For this next week I plan on working on a new pixel animation, but I'll still be thinking about the game and maybe tweaking it a bit if I find time

This is gonna be all for today. Hope you guys liked this post

Seeya next time ❤️