my plans

hello. 

well, i hope you all are as eager as this kitten.

i think it's time i make explicit my plans for the game. i hope you like text walls.

there are two main parts of a video game: the engine it's built on, and the actual content of the game. 

try to imagine how this game came to be: i started out on gb-studio, an engine where i was free from worries about the particulars like camera movement and scene transitions, and i was allowed to just think about the areas and sprites and story. when i made the switch to my own engine, creation of the content portion of the game was almost completely stopped. i couldn't implement my ideas, because i had no framework to lay them on.

but i still have ideas. my vision of this game is very tangible in my mind, and if there's one thing i'm good at, it's not stopping until i am happy with the finished product. 

so now, in my brief respite from the constant bombardment of greek history lectures, i will write my vision. i will include what i have written in other devlogs. i will try to make this as comprehensive as i can. to make things simple, i will refer to the main character as the "player" and the person playing the game as the "user".

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the player will start in their apartment. i imagine it will look similar to the apartment in the game right now. ski butters, the player's cat, will be present around the house in different places. i want the player to be able to pet the cat with a small animation. the user will have time to get acquainted with the player's apartment, and then the power will shut off. i think a way i could reinforce this is with a small lighting system, where if the player is in a dark area, all of the pixels will be shifted one color down. white will change to light gray, light gray to dark, and so on. that shouldn't be too difficult and it would be a powerful tool to use atmospherically. the player will be forced to leave their apartment. then, the player can go out into the city. the city is very dilapidated, a strong contrast to the player's clean apartment. i imagine the walk from the player's room to the outside will be very dramatic.  i think the best way to describe the city is to make a list of the city's attractions:

• fire station
  • directly west next to the apartment building. will be inaccessible at the beginning of the game. to gain access, the player must fill the fire engine blocking the entrance with gasoline, acquired at the gas station later on once the fire station is accessible, the player can get the key for the park on the east side of town.
• parking garage
  • east of the apartment. i think this would be a good place to put a battle tutorial.
• barber shop
  • west of the fire station. won't have anything critical in it. i don't have any ideas for it yet either
• hospital
  • south of the barber shop, across the street. will be inaccessible to the player. below that, an inaccessible street. i want to add this in to make the city seem bigger than it really is. 
• business building
  • a simple business building. i want this to be accessible but optional, but i'm not exactly sure what it will contain yet.
• bank
  • east of the business. an alleyway separates them. i want to put items here, as it's practically the halfway point to the department store. similarly, i want it to be an optional area, but i don't have any ideas of what to put in it. maybe one of these will be opened with the bolt cutters, to give the player a reason to backtrack a little.
• news station
  • another optional area, but will have some lore about how the world came to be how it is. just east of the bank.
• cafe
  • north of the news station. optional, but very cute
• department store
  • west of the cafe. i want it to have a big interior. here the player will get the bolt cutters, which will allow them to open a shortcut back to the apartment, as well as the gate that leads to the subway.
• subway
  • a long stretch that leads from beneath the parking garage to halfway west across the underground city. lots of bad guys i think. broken down trains and rubble. a train blocks the path further, but there is a convenient hole in the wall that leads to the sewers.
• sewer
  • another long stretch underground. even more disgusting than the subway. even more enemies. even more dark. will lead all the way to beneath the power plant
• power plant
  • a big area in the north west part of the city. lots of industrial stuff. some train cars and such. here the player will collect parts to repair the power machine, but the parts will be imperfect. the player battles off a bunch of enemies, and perhaps a big boss (here will go the crow?) and then be presented with the choice to fix the power or leave it broken. i wrote about this choice in more detail in one of my previous devlogs. depending on the user's choice, the walk south of the power plant to the gas station will be different.
• gas station
  • a simple gas station. here the player can get gas to move the fire truck. i think i want to put the roadblock to the power plant above the gas station, so the player can see the gas station as the goal they need to be working towards to move the fire truck. 
• park
  • another big area. i want it to be very natural though. it will still have some gross parts, but i want the beauty of nature to be emphasized. the player will snake around the park for a while, and then jump down a well to go to the next area. 

now i will detail the systems available to the player. i'm going to make another list. they are very helpful!

• menu
  • inventory
    • a bag of 35 spaces. items will not stack. you will be able to equip items here, like weapons and equipment and clothes. there will be items to heal the player, and items to change the mood of the player. i want to add in a pigeon delivery service so the player can change items with a bank. (maybe the bank in the city will be where the items are stored? this would be a great opportunity to add a trillion pigeons into the game. outside of the bank! i like this idea.).
  • status
    • shows the stats of the player, like current health, maximum health, attack damage, defense rating, accuracy, critical hit chance. i think the player will be able to see at least one of their moods. maybe the secondary, persistent mood will be hidden from the player? it might not be a good idea gameplay wise, but it fits well into my theme of deciphering emotions.
  • skills
    • as the player levels up, they will unlock skills. i think my idea for them makes them more like perks. you will be able to toggle perks freely. they will modify damage, defense, and other utility things. i have a few ideas for skills, but not many. ideas are welcome here. 
• battle
  • this will be a traditional rpg game, but i don't want to add in any party members. the battle system will be dominated with moods. 
• moods
  • moods change the immediate stats of the player and maybe enemies too. working around moods will be a major part of the learning curve of the game. i'm not exactly sure when battle will be first introduced to the user. this is an rpg and waiting too long wouldn't help anything, but i want to be careful to not damage the atmosphere of the beginning of the game by going to quickly. 
• saving
  • i think there will be set points around the world that the player can save in. it's possible to make saving possible anywhere, but i think having saving spots will force the user to know the game world better. i think if the player dies in battle, the player will go back to the last save. 
• pacts
  • this one's big if you're here for things i've never told anyone before. somewhere in the city, hopefully before any enemies appear, i want to add in a "secret" (i don't want the player to miss this area, but it wouldn't make much sense to put it out in the open.) sinister area where the player can start a pact. a pact will be a permanent game modifier. there might be a pact where the player agrees to get lower accuracy for better damage, better defense for lower average moods, and etc. those were just examples. i on'y have one concrete idea for a pact so far. i want to add in a pact that will completely remove moods, but in return the player won't be able to deal any damage. they will have to use minions to do the fighting for them. (bennett i thought you said you wouldn't add in any party members). i don't really think of them as party members. they will be an extension of the player. there will be a bunch of pacts to choose from i think. pacts will be a powerful way to add replayability to my game, and to personalize the experience to what the player wishes. this would be the way different difficulties would be added into the game, if any.

here is where things get further into "idea" territory.

once the player drops into the well, they will be in a swampy cave. this is basically a dungeon. i want dungeons in thie game to be pretty zelda-like, but i don't think i'll add standard items like dungeon maps or compasses. i want there to be small puzzles and keys and such. i don't think the player will be able to go back to the city at this point. i'm not sure about the exact format of the cave dungeon, but i think it will be similar to the frog dungeon from the first iterations of the game. 

i think the cave might flow into a bigger swamp. this would be the milk swamp that i posted a picture of in beginning of the up to now devlog. i don't have any ideas for the layout here either, but i am very much in love with this concept. in the milk swamp, i think i might add in a human settlement. among these humans, i want to add in a bunch of small side quests. interlinked with the main quest in the area. i don't really know what the main quest will be at this point in the game, but i have a vision of a large statue. this isn't me being cryptic or anything, i just want to add in a large statue. I want the player to get well acquainted with the humans here. after being in the city and the caves for so long, i think human contact could be a very powerful tool. 

after the milk swamp, i only have small ideas. i'm thinking of a cold mountain area, a hot and flat desert area, and an ocean area with boats. 

my format for coming up with ideas for the game are pretty linear. i'm not thinking too much about the end of the game. i'm just going one step at a time. 

i'm going one step at a time.

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here is what i have for the city so far:

keep in mind, i haven't started the grime process yet. pieces of the buildings will be missing, there will be rocks and trees in the roads, and all of that. this is only what i have so far.

i was working on putting out another release for the game. i even had one finished and ready to put out, but chrome was recognizing the game as a virus again. i realize it might be silly to hold a release back because of this, but the thought of my game being called a virus or a mistake makes me mad, and i won't let it slide. i am going to continue working to find a reliable way to release updates that aren't recognized as viruses. 

i just finished my greek history midterm earlier today. i have been buried up to the neck in work lately. i haven't had any time to work on the game. but this weekend, i'm going on a trip to my dads house. i am going to go to a river, and record my first sounds for the game. if i'm lucky i will be able to capture sounds like birds, trees, wind, and the trickle of water across rocks. it may not seem like much, but i'm very excited. 

thank you all for sticking with me. 

i hope you continue to stay here with me, watching this small world come into fruition. 

i love you guys.