The game: My Game Part 1 - (dev. log)

So last time I said that I will be sharing my thoughts on the game(s) I want to make this year, with this new found time at hand. Also I said I will give some views on games genre's I like and do not enjoy and why. This however will not make for a concise article so I will stick to the more fun idea of telling you what game I started to make this week, and what games inspired this concept since I'm influenced by what I can associate myself with like any other person who seems sort of sane. (Note: I do not like overly violent and offending games, and I would like games to add more value to real life concerns and non-gamers in general...)

This is a game which I don't only want to make, but also want to play! Inspired by the new survival game "Don't Starve" and also thé all too popular sandbox game "Minecraft". Yes yes, know you all moan what a cliche...but I really like these genre and hope to add to it... Also, since when I mentioned I want to make another crafting survival game a year ago, my friends said "but that's already done!" and then the "Don't Starve" game came out and I was like 'hmmm'...if you want to do something then just go for it! Believe in yourself, set high goals and you will figure it out as you go...just start!

So, it will basically be a survival game, with crafting and fixing (maybe) as the main mechanic and with similar perspective as Don't Starve, but with more Minecraft crafting style. This won't be a sandbox like Minecraft, thus it wont be about building and destructible terrain. It will be more unique; akin to the movie Wall-e! Yes, so I want to combine a movie and a few games I really enjoy; to make the casual game I want to play. Then also share the process or game with others. If in future I'm successful and you like it then, hey, maybe you will even help me make the game itself successful in whatever way. 

So since I decided not to try and become rich out of this, I now feel much more confident to talk about my game ideas here and please help me with more ideas from you so this game can really rock and knock my own socks off! I can do with all the creative help possible, for character ideas, crafting recipes, and so forth since I'm way towards the analytically inclined side of my brain. So for now I will dabble in saving the human race from itself and flex the creative muscles as much I can in this project. I'm really excited about it, and I do think it will appeal to others! Also; versus my other idea of making a retro turn based 2d TCG (Trading Card Game) with a Greek mythology theme...it should lean more itself to a game with some weight.

The way I went about my design is to first dream about it, to the point where I want to tell my friends about it, and they get excited..and then there comes a point where I start to forget all the great ideas I started with. This is when I know to start my journal, or good old pen and paper game design step. Also here and there I will prototype some ideas with GameMaker, but I've learnt I'm way more efficient the days where I program a feature or concept, only after I journal about it in my idea book. Helps the brainstorming you see, and I can separate days where I'm frustrated if I struggle with programming from creative spurts on the paper. It's like mathematics in school - don't try to work out the answer in your mind and write it down...you will discover it faster if you write more steps out on paper towards the answer -  even in this digital age.

So you probably want to know more about my game, hey! Since my skill set is programming it will either have Minecraft basic graphics on 2.5D and non-isometric (fake 3D which is just 2D with [depth = -y;]) graphics. So far I actually have a demo main character in nice pixel art, made by a new artist I found on GMC (GameMaker Community forums). The main character's name will be Meemo (my Wife helped to select his name) and look very similar to Wall-e the robot in the Pixar film. 

The plot will be very similar to the movie, and almost continue from where the movie left off the intro while he was about scavenging and recycling to waste on Earth. Note I never actually played the Wall-e games. Then you must scavenge and explore the random world for items to help you craft amazing machines with a wonderful purpose in mind, all the time worrying about your battery power and oil consumption... See you must help the human race from finally destroying our beautiful planet Earth by our greed for fossil fuels and cheap energy. Humanity was careless, and was it not for your creator who changed your AI to goals of reducing carbon footprint and rescuing the environment by cleaner fuels for power and earth rehabilitation - all will be lost for mankind! You along with little Meemo, will be our redemption.

I've got some interesting changes to the crafting mechanics of the games which inspired me, and currently I'm busy with coding the Inventory system and still a bit stuck with drag n drop between inventory slots. I've got Meemo rolling around the random generated world animations and all in GML (Game Maker Language) with very basic biomes working on a really flat earth. Path-finding works, with mouse controls, but for some reasons the [depth = -y;] setting breaks the solid object detection? At least I got a cute piece of code to help Meemo collect or farm items in the world. What is really promising is the use of Surfaces in GM made the game really fast at over 200FPS so far, with also deactivating instances which are out of game view! (GM users will now that we use views in the larger game rooms, and only show the view in a port on the screen) 

So far I don't yet have very specific crafting recipes planned, or game world environments designed, hoping to find a very creative pixel artist to help me with this design concept...But as soon as the mechanics are polished well, I think this is just content which can be added easily with the graphics and text develops. At least I have a good grip on energy technologies and the impact of fossil fuels from my working experience as a chemical engineer. I hope to make a positive impact on people, with a fun game!

Thanks for reading this until the next part2, when I will update you (probably over weekends) with this as a {dev}elopment (b)log. In the next part I will share my progress and what I plan for making crafting more fun and less work and how perma-death can be less brutally implemented so that you don't punish your player with it...