Devtober 2020 #2 #3 #4 - Prototyping

October 4, 2020 3 minute read

After making some assumptions on what kind of game I want to develop, I decided to explore each kind and I removed the ones I didn’t want anymore. However, social life caught me up and I lost plenty of time on the project.

Log #2 (2020-10-2)

I worked all day on my fulltime job and then I started to explore each type of game.

Collection game like pokemon with a simple story

Thinking about pokemon-like game, I thought about multiple ideas. First, the game will need a linear story with different characters. This implies a dialog system, NPCs, and storytelling skills. In addition, I will need to draw a lot of content to be able to have a playable game (in my opinion). In conclusion, I preferred to remove that idea and focus on shorter game.

Fighting game like “La Brute” (old french web-based multiplayer game)

For this kind of game, taking into account that I didn’t develop a game since a long time ago, I preferred not to start by a multiplayer game.

Puzzle game based on 4th+ dimensions

This one really inspired me. However, this game would need several levels and puzzle making skills to really make a fun game. Furthermore, I didn’t play a puzzle game since a long time and I wasn’t sure to have envy of developing one. In conclusion, for a futur game jam it’ll be a good challenge.

2D Sandbox Minecraft-like game (I’ve always wanted to do one)

A sandbox game required (in my opinion) a very good procedural engine. The core of the game is based on being able to do almost anything and allowing the player to build its own gaming experience. Nevertheless, I never implemented a procedural engine and I think a sandbox game is a big project to start procedural development.

Survival game with resources management

My final choice focused on a survival game with resource management. I chose that kind of game because it’s one of my favorite and I played different kind of survival games.

Log #3 (2020-10-3)

It was my father birthday and I had a party in the evening. I basically did nothing. Almost… nothing. I got my game idea on that day!

Ludum Dare 47 theme: Stuck in a loop

Log #4 (2020-10-4)

That day was the most productive!

Game “design”

It is a player-based game in a space station. What I mean by player-based game is that the player will manager a character and not a population.

The player has to manage resources to survive:

Oxygen
Food
Hungriness
Sanity
Tiredness
Thurstiness
Spacecraft Energy
Scrap

The player has to repair his spacecraft along his journey. The spacecraft has a limited amount of oxygen and a limited amount of energy. Each part of the spacecraft decay overtime and needs to be repaired to continue the journey.

The spacecraft is programmed to arrive to a destination. Win condition: Arrive to destination.

The destination can be more or less far from the current player position. The distance can be one of the difficulty factor.

In this scenario, one unit of distance is equivalent to one bed-time. When the player go to sleep, the spaceship moves one unit forward. It changes the current map and the resources that can be retrieved. Each time the player sleeps, it will consume an amount of resources. The player will know how much the bed-time will consume in his resources. Different events can impact that number of resources consumed. Each bed-time consumes spacecraft parts. Random events can impact how much is consumed.

On the path of the spacecraft, multiples stops are possible. It is where the player can retrieve scraps to repair the spacecraft, food, oxygen, water, etc.

To move to different stops, the player has to choose on a map. Each map is generated procedurally. When the player land on a stop, the world is generated procedurally (small worlds). Each world can be a wrecked spacecraft, an asteroid, or a planet.

I had more ideas that will come in the next dev logs.

Art