Null's Gamedev Journal - Week 2: Monsters and Muses

We're a day early this week with the blog post. Normally, Sunday is my day off from programming where I write and play games and such, but today I was in charge of babysitting a puppy, so I didn't have any time to spend coding. I figure today is going to be my day off while tomorrow will be a work day. Anyways, let's discuss how things are going.

On New Years day, I started a fresh Godot project and began coding. My initial vague plan was to make a sort of customizable tower-defense game. The player would collect different weapons that they could place on tower bases to get different unique towers. I had intended to make the game a bit of a roguelike, where over the course of a run you'd collect new parts to outfit your towers with. It's definitely an idea with a lot of potential, but I ended up deciding to set it aside for now.

I don't recall what triggered the thought, but as I was lying in bed that night, I came to the conclusion that I'd like to make a game for my girlfriend and I to enjoy together. I tend to have trouble defining a target audience, and end up just trying to make games that appeal to me. The problem with that is once you've worked on the same game for enough time, it inevitably loses that appeal. By saying my girlfriend is my target audience, I avoid that issue, and I also solve a lot of other problems. I know my girlfriend really well, so I immediately have a solid idea of what sort of gameplay she'd enjoy. I know what appeals to her aesthetically. I immediately have a willing and available playtester who's tempermentally suited to the game I'm making. The list goes on.

With that in mind, I scrapped what little work I had done on the tower-defense game and began on a game I've tentatively titled "Princess of Monsters." The premise is fairly straightforward: You were a princess in a human kingdom, but you were exiled because you got along well with monsters. Now in exile, you've set out to build your own kingdom where monsters and humans can live peacefully. In your new kingdom, you'll have to recruit and raise monsters, manage your citizens, and defend your homeland from various types of hostile invaders. In terms of other games, I'd describe it as one part Stardew Valley, one part Zoo Tycoon with various other influences sprinkled in there.

The idea focus tested well. By that I mean I pitched it to my girlfriend and she was excited by the idea. So I started work. I also asked my girlfriend what she'd like to be able to do first in the game. She said building/decorating a house. So away I went. I had intended to get that feature into a presentable state today but I got saddled up with other responsibilities as I mentioned at the start. I went with an isometric perspective for the game, as that seemed like the best fit for my limited artistic abilities. It makes it a lot easier to achieve the feeling of depth compared to a standard 2D viewpoint. At the moment, I'm a little hung-up working out all the math on the isometric grid system. Basically before I set up placing objects, I want to be able to make sure they're locked into a proper grid. That said, I had it just about figured last night, so I don't think it'll take me too much more time to work through.

That's about all I have to say about my progress this week. Next week I'll make sure to have some screenshots and gifs to share to liven things up in these posts. If I have time, I'll also post some other content I've been working on over the coming week.

Stats

• Repo Size: 861 kb
• Lines of Code: Can't check this at the moment, sorry!