Game Dev Diary: FR v0.16, reprise

Game Dev Diary: FR v0.16, reprise

No, I have nothing new to show you. I’ve done very little coding since my last Game Dev Diary post, so I’ve nothing to show for it. So why an update?

  1. Because otherwise you may think I’ve given up on it.
  2. Because I have done other, related stuff instead.

You might remember my Interactive Fiction game from the other day: Sandman. Oh yeah, that’s an itch.io link right there. Sexy. Anyway, that was a deviation from this title, but it did help me think through the structure of a game a little more.

freeroam-1

Now I have a mostly working “engine” for my PICO-8 game, I’ve been thinking some more about what sort of game I’d like it to be. I’d already considered a narrative discovery game, as it’s a good fit for something technically quite easy (since it’s my first proper game for the platform), and it allows me to concentrate on what happens rather than how I need to code it to happen, if you see what I mean.

To that end, I’m going to construct a game world which is pretty linear, perhaps in the form of a simple maze. You’ll be forced to progress, and there’ll be incidental events that happen or are triggered on the way. It’ll tell a story, some of which I have worked out in my head and some I still need to come up with, but I’m not going to explain any of that to you lot just yet. Spoilers, you see. And everything is still subject to change too.

So, next tasks:

  1. Come up with enough story to start developing more of the actual game.
  2. Graphics. Lots of graphics.
  3. ???
  4. Profit.

Pretty standard game dev stuff there, I think.

What I am finding hard, though, is trying not to think two or three projects ahead. I’m barely out of the starting blocks with this one and I’m already thinking through how my next game will work, and have ideas for another. Using Twine was an interesting side project too, so I suspect I’ll return to that as well. I just need to concentrate on one thing at a time!

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