#cwunchy blog post

[cwispydev]

17/04/2022 4:01 (edited 18/04/2022 20:33)

After lazing about and procrastinating on this (because, despite how passionate I am about anything, my lizard brain will always procrastinate), I've managed to both disappoint and impress myself.

As I had written in my dev log yesterday, I wanted to accomplish the following things:

finishing the character creator part

finding a way to assign the starting stats of the player based on the background that they choose their character to have

a little quiz to see what type of person the player likes and see if any of the characters in the game suits their taste best

write a little bit more of the story so that there's actual content other than just dumb questions

The good news is that I managed to accomplish most of that. The bad news is that I managed to accomplish most of that.

I finished the character creator (for the most part). I still want to implement a little paragraph where there's a brief description of the player so you get a little summary of what you look like. I haven't started on it but, other than that, the character creator is finished.

I've started making the quiz for the player to see what type of person they'd be into. I haven't finished it yet but my friend and I have decided to make a variable for each possible character the player can end up with and then each choice the player makes will add a point to the related character variable. Then, in the end, the one with the most is the one that the player character will end up with.

But, like I said, that hasn't been added yet because I haven't even finished the quiz. Sucks to be me.

I wrote a little bit of a scene at the beginning so that there's a bit of text in the game but that's pretty much all I've done on that.

Now that I've written it all out, actually, it doesn't feel like I've done a lot. Which, of course, bums me out but I guess I'll just try to get more stuff done tomorrow.

The stuff I learned to do that wasn't on the list was the fact that I learned to make text appear and disappear based on things the player clicks. When the player selects their background from a drop-down, the description of the background appears below that. Things like that.

I also learned how to upload things on GitHub so that's fun! My friend and I needed a way to basically exchange the files back and forth because he's helping look over my code, streamline it and even add a little stuff cus he's a very experienced genius coder and I'm his teeny tiny apprentice dumb student.

That's pretty much it.

Goals I want to accomplish by the time I update tomorrow:

finish everything I want to do with the character creator

implement the starting stats stuff based on the background the player chooses (I already know what stats will go into each background, just need to code it)

finish the quiz the player has to take and code the shit out of it

write more stuff!

Looks like a small list but I bet it won't feel small while I'm trying to get it done!

[cwispydev]

16/04/2022 4:17 (edited 18/04/2022 17:38)

Merry Christmas, happy New Year, hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day! All in all, a lot has happened but you know what hasn't happened? Any progress with my little Godot game.

Instead of really making progress with anything, I ended up fucking around with my very good friend and playing a lot of video games. A lot of the games that really caught my eye (especially recently) were text-based games.

Examples would be Corruption of Champions, Trials in Tainted Space and Degrees of Lewdity. They'd be my top three favourite. In fact, I loved them so much that I wanted to turn my dream of making a dating sim/otome game into something like that.

Problem is (because, of course, there's always a big fat problem) all of those kind of games are very code heavy and story heavy.

Story heavy is fine seeing as, like I've stated before, I'm a writer. No, the problem is that I'm not at all a coder.

I've coded in high school a little bit for my terny robotics club team but, as most nerds do, I graduated high school and erased all of my memories of that time.

I remember some things like variables, how if statements work, things like that. However, if you sat me in front of a computer, put a gun to my head, and asked me to code, I'd stick that gun into my mouth and laugh.

When I told my very good friend this predicament, he came up with a solution. He said it was probably a good idea to work towards big project with little projects. It would help me learn the skills I'd need to complete my ultimate dream game and it'd help me practice coding a little bit. So, that's what I decided to do.

I settled on using Twine/Sugarcube/JavaScript entirely on my own, no input from my friend at all. Maybe the fact that Degrees of Lewdity was coded using Twine/Sugarcube/JavaScript also helped a little.

Then, I decided to join a game jam with a little text-based choose-your-own-adventure game to kind of jump into the deep and see if I survive. This one is entirely my very good friend's idea and, honestly, I don't know if it's a great one. I don't even know anything about the game jam, just that it's over in 11 days (9 I think as I edit this post) and that it's only requirement is to make the game with JavaScript.

Together, we decided on a cute little dating sim/otome game concept where the character has just moved into a new town and, because they're so extremely busy and have had bad luck with romance and finding love, they join a little speed dating event in hopes of finding a connection with someone in this unfamiliar city.

I came up with the title Love on the Run because you're too busy to stop and find love so you need to have Love on the Run? Get it? Ha, I hope so because I'd be really embarassed if you didn't.

So, entirely on my own, I learnt how to make bubbles, buttons, drop downs. Also learnt how to fade text in and out and how to change text color by searching up Reddit posts and copying code. My friend jumped in later on to check on my code and streamline it as well as kind of pull it apart and explain it to me.

He doesn't want me to put any code I don't entirely understand in the game and I think that's pretty understandable.

Then, he continudd on to teach me how to assign variables and how to use functions, all the bread and butter of how to code with JavaScript.

So far, we've accomplished:

making half of a character creator with bubbles and drop downs

What I want to accomplish by tomorrow:

finishing the character creator part

finding a way to assign the starting stats of the player based on the background that they choose their character to have

a little quiz to see what type of person the player likes and see if any of the characters in the game suits their taste best

write a little bit more of the story so that there's actual content other than just dumb questions

Thanks for reading and, hopefully, by the time I write my next post, Ill have good news for you guys (me editing this post in the future: well, there's good news and bad news...)

[cwispydev]

11/12/2021 7:38

Back already with another blog entry??

Yeah, I wanted to make like an initial blog entry kind of stating what I want, my goals, where I'm coming from, etc. So that's my first blog entry. This second one is about what I've done which is basically nothing :')

I was really indecisive about what kind of program I'd use to make this game on.

I was considering Ren'py (since it's the leading engine for dating games) but it was too code heavy for me who likes visualising things and I'm not very good at staring at huge chunks of text while imagining what they translate to in the game.

Then, I considered Unity but, after watching a few how to videos on Youtube, I decided I'm way too stupid to learn that engine too.

A very good friend of mine suggested Godot so I've been fiddling with that and it's gone really well so far. I love the way it's a very visual engine! The problem (because, of course, there always has to be one) is that I'm not much of an artist and you have to pretty much attach code to art in Godot.

My friend has taught me how to make buttons so far and we've done practice buttons and a practice menu. It's easier than I thought and the way he explained it was really simple. We managed to make this absolute piece of art so that's fun!

I want my menu to be much more complicated than that, though.

My new short-term goals are now:

to figure out how to do a hover animation over the buttons

how to make a loading page so you can select save slots and load them which sounds like a pain in the ass

figure out the options page too which is also going to be a bigger pain in the ass

For now, I think I'll work on the graphics a bit more, design the menu out, make the components that I'll attach the code to and then go from there.

I will march on, encouraged by the power of Benis. Hopefully I'll have a better update for the blog tomorrow

[cwispydev]

11/12/2021 7:33

Hello! My name is crispy and I've decided to start a nice little game development blog. You're reading the first post!

I've always wanted to make my own game but it's always seemed really difficult and overwhelming. Where do you even start, how do you even motivate yourself to keep going, when are you going to have the time?

Well, I'm going to start now--I have the time since I'm in between college semesters--and I'm going to just fucking do it. No more pussyfooting around or procrastinating. I'm going to motivate myself to keep going and I'm going to hack at this (coding pun intended) until I churn out a solid turd in the form of a game.

Since the brain-worm about making a game entered my mind, I've always known what kind of game I'd make. A dating/otome game. I've obsessed with them my entire life and, though I'm not as into them as I was a couple of years ago, I can at least say that I can tell what a good and what a shitty dating game is like.

The dating game I want to make starts with the player moving into the big city in the hopes of starting a new life and, along the way, maybe finding new love.

Some of the features I want it to include are:

interactable laptop and phone where you can receive emails, go on online chats, text and call other people, etc

very extensive character designer

choices that really personalize the main character so that players can really feel that they're the main character

a flexible schedule so that the player can design their own and do whatever they want with their day

There's only one problem with all of those features and a very good friend of mine was able to word it perfectly. 'People who want to make games are usually divided into three groups: coders who can't do art, artists who can't code and writers who can't do either.'

I'm a writer with big fat dreams and I can't do shit.

So, join me while I fucking struggle to learn how to do this! It's going to be annoying as all hell and you're going to hate it but at least you can laugh at me while I fumble my way through this