#worldbuilding progress devlog

[hydralisk98]

NetBPM & sidetracks indev research... (article '16^12 '0x34)

Previous mainline article in the thread:

So yeah, been diving deep into English Wikipedia again in search for alternate digital file formats and some pseudo-official paperwork things as to enrich my setting further. Things like GeoTIFF, LZ4 compression, ASVGs, OGG as multi-track OPUS, UDO optical disks, MagnetoOptical, ZIP Drives, MiniDiscs, PAM graphics, JPEG XL, OpenEXR, Elphel cameras, AXIOM Gamma, QOI, TARGA TrueVisionGraphics... Either way, I am really looking forward to producing my own law bills, paperwork stationery and in-world memorabilia in line with the worldly context of such a planet along its history.

(so from official transition papers, identity cards & phonebooks to morphological freedoms bills & legal checkbook archives, it will be very dense but worthy to study)

In the meantime of a story-wise localization update, I felt like giving you some quick insights onto where my project is at overall.

Current status of progress on the worldscape itself (ignoring the astronomy and wider stellar sectors' matters for the time being):

Major cultures are pretty well set now, but I still got to place their dialects, creoles, pidgins, shared loanwords, unique jargon, diasporas & other historical components all across as I seek a ratio of 1:5 per major Civ as to have 6 major cities per major Civ, which definitely includes (minor city-states & more autonomous states within their spheres of influence / diplomatic reach) ones present for mechanical flavor and variety of POIs. I tend towards ~4608-4800 of those markers (so sixteen per major settlement overall) as to compartmentalize them per major culture.

Religions is mid-way in progress, as there should be far more of them added to the mixture & integrated into the lore tbh, but I do have a couple major pantheons going already albeit in very little detailing due to the Civ 5 issue I got rn.

Countries/Nationstates/Sovereignties are yet to be worked fully as well, too because I rely on consulting my Civilization 5 CE modpack gameplay sessions to derive better specifics out of it (or at least make informed choices given the encyclopedia, implied lore and other save-state details). And due to it failing to launch any one of the mods or saves proper, often in the past week, I am just awaiting some, which I am far from pleased of as a situation…

My lively DR scripture needs some revising though it has most key components in already, and the "personal project" pitch deck for 16^12 depends on the parts discussed prior to move along. And the localization of the first scenario module process is pretty… meh type-of slow.

See you all around soon with a further update on my doings. Take care!

[library-of-legion]

[thefourthyear]

Welcome to The Fourth Year

an original romance visual novel in development

You wake in a soft, dreamy university town surrounding the elite Vel Quirium Spellworking Institute. Apparently you are just about to begin the fourth year of your study- but you have no memory of who or where you are.

You’ll meet people you might have known, fall in love, and decide whether or not you piece together the truth. Will you face the past version of yourself, or take advantage of your clean slate?

Some pasts are better left buried… but what if yours is still alive?

Love Interests

• Kael Kaeger- Illusionist, rebel, agent of chaos. Claims he was you best friend.

• Isaela Dorn- A duel-hardened rule enforcer. Walks like it’s her job to keep the world from falling apart. Glares at you a lot.

• Ezren Toma- A brilliant inventor unraveling the science of memory. He claims he can restore yours-no matter the cost.

• Veyra Solhart- your previous mentor, a student aide with a sad smile.

• ???- A masked figure that haunts your dreams. His voice and feels familiar. You’re not sure he’s entirely human.

Tag Navigation

• #the fourth year — general updates

• #devlog — game progress

• #art — character art, scenery, concept art and W.I.P.s

• #lore — worldbuilding, magic systems, history, protagonist info

• #veyra solhart | #kael kaeger | #isaela dorn | #ezren toma| #the masked figure — for each love interest

• #asks — good old Q&A

• #writing snippets — from in-game dialogue or scenes

• #inspo | #aesthetic —moodboards and anything similarly vibey

Hi, all! Welcome to my devlog for The Fourth Year. Here to have fun! Feel free to send in questions, theories, or just say hi! I’ll be documenting development at my own pace and will be sharing tidbits about the story, world and characters as I do (no big spoilers, of course).

Thanks for being here!

[novinitumd]

Crelog #2

(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)

This is the second Novinitum D crelog! (a.k.a. creator log. I know, very creative). These are basically like devlogs but for my specevo and worldbuilding projects. Entries where it's me updating yall on the behind-the-scenes stuff and also asking for feedback on occasion, maybe even a poll, we'll see.

It's been a while! Happy 2024! In this entry I'll be discussing some major changes about the planet + a tentative list of seeding taxa! It's very brief but I think I owe it to the very small handful of people who've shown interest in this project.

sneak peak into what this crelog features

Previous crelog [#1] <- [#2] -> Next crelog [#3] 🗒️Crelogs🗒️

~~~~~🌎🌍🌏~~~~~

the state of the world map at 0 MY (the massive blank space is part of a plate which is too big for gplates to render)

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that not only is this an entirely different map, but that I'm starting from an entirely different method. Instead of starting with a super continent which splits apart - like in Worldbuilding Pasta's method (link to their blog here) - I've started from the oceanic plates first, essentially starting the world from scratch. The map at 50 MY will be seen when I reveal the name of the first time period.

~~~~~🐟🐟🐟~~~~~

This list is very tentative but most likely will stay the same:

Animals:

Operculaurisichthys

made up fully pelagic Grimothea species

reef building oysters

scallops

copepods

made up Argyroneta species

clam shrimp of marine and freshwater varieties

made up thalattosuchian genus

made up starfish genus

made up Ptychoceras species

made up Squalus species

made up lanternfish species

made up pycnodont species

Plants:

Zostera marina

indeterminate algae

Valonia ventricosa

indeterminate phytoplankton

Fungi:

marine lichens (I know these aren't true fungi but for simplicity's sake they're here)

That's all for now! There should be more coming soon since progress has been incredibly quick since the change in plate tectonic method

[tangleworm]

NOMIA

Hi everyone, been a while! I'm making an isometric tactics game called NOMIA.

What's the summary?

It's Final Fantasy Tactics meets Slay the Spire.

It's about the characters I've been drawing, navigating a dreamlike world where things that fade from the collective memory coalesce into places and creatures. It's an exercise in making a cozy fantasy setting that explores lesser-seen worldbuilding elements.

What makes this unique?

I'm focusing on three things that I hope will make for a fun and unique experience.

1. Your hand has two halves. The left side of your hand represents your Actions, which persist between turns, but have charges and cooldowns. The right side of your hand represents your Gambits, which are drawn from a deck of cards each turn, and are discarded when played. You can add to both decks over the course of a run, expressing your playstyle through character building as well as deckbuilding.

2. Your party has two heroes. You'll always pick two at the start of each expedition -- a Mighty and a Magical. The Mighty has more Actions. The Magical has more Gambits.

Each has a unique deck of possible cards.

3. Your enemies have tells. Enemy intents are shown on your turn, rewarding clever defense. Intents are adjusted when you play cards, but not randomly; enemies have a goal in mind and will do their best to achieve it, allowing you to counterplay.

You can make enemies reconsider their target by attacking them. A character can play tank for their partner if they're in a pinch.

What am I working on?

I've spent roughly the last four months laying the groundwork for the card battle system, and figuring out a card creation pipeline and art style that would make it feasible for me, one (1) person, to make hundreds of unique and interesting cards.

I hope to achieve a sense of multiplicative game design -- that is, each aspect of the game creates synergies with the others, creating many possibilities and stories.

Next, I'll be working on run progression, and unique map/enemy generation for the different biomes I have in my head.

Thanks for taking the time to read my devlog!

---

(What does NOMIA stand for?

It stands for No One Makes It Alone. I am, ironically, making this alone. But I also like to think of it as a meditation on the fact that even in this situation, I'm benefiting from the work of countless people who have inspired me and laid the groundwork for what I'm trying to do.)

[itsu-saragi]

Devlog #5 - Celebrating the Little Things.

Good timezone, here’s my June progress update.

Unfortunately there isn’t much to inform. Most of this month was spent running around preparing for my move to another US state, and dealing with the stress that came out of it. So not a lot of progress has been made on the VN.

Instead I thought I’d share something a little different.

Back in August of last year, when I first decided I’d start this silly VN project, I bought myself a little notebook. An A6 spiral notebook with 120 pages, so I can write out and discuss my thoughts. Now, almost a year later, I’m five pages away from filling up the entire thing.

I think that’s pretty fucking cool.

(Tuna decided to intrude as I was taking photos of my notebook lmao)

——-

Most of the contents aren’t useable considering I scrapped the VN premise midway through, but there’s still some character/worldbuilding/story notes in here that I know will be important to the final product. And most of all, I like how I can see my thought process written out. Even though I may not have an outline or a script, I’m happy this serves as a reminder that I’ve still made progress on this weird little project.

I’ve already bought a second pocket notebook, and I’m looking forward to filling that one out as well.

That’s all for now. Next month will also be a short update as I’ll still be in moving hell, but I’ll make sure to post my progress update nonetheless.

Thanks for reading! I hope you have a good timezone :)

[schwender-exe]

The ever expanding devlog #7

Well, well, well. So it's been some time! I nearly forgot to post this month to be honest-- not from a lack of things to post, not by a long shot! You see, somethings have changed since my last devlog and well, after talking with a few people, I now have a small team of sorts!

I'll introduce one of them under the codename they chose: "Hououin Kyouma" (yes, after the steins;gate character!) Their role is basically as a #2 with the game, they help me out with everything outside of programming itself, their texture work with tiles is awesome and their knowledge with worldbuilding is also helping with our current project.

"Why are you working with other people?" you might ask? Well, if it wasn't obvious enough, I have a bit of a commitment issue when it comes to game projects. I'll jump around every other month to a new project and latch onto some hope of "this'll be the one I'll stick with and actually finish!!" However! Now, with others working side-by-side with me, we can hold each other accountable! if I were to try and hop over to another project, I can now get a swift slap to the hand and get told "nope, we're working on this project." and that goes double for deadlines, organization, etc. Since I've gotten the new help, I've dedicated a lot of my time outside of programming to making sure we're all on the same page, organized, and thinking together, rather than apart. I hope that shows through in the final game.

Enough talk! you want a video of our progress so far? Well, I decided to jump back to a previous project simply titled "zelda-like" and from that initial prototype, we've expanded it since, working on a few features while we wait for the other two possible members to get some free time so we can properly work together and brainstorm our story.

Above is the reworked terminal, among many other changes from footage I've previously shown in devlog #4, me and okabe have reworked how it functions, from having certain terminals requiring a reboot on first interacting with them, to a whole new UI look made by okabe himself! I worked on the programming to allow for the text to be displayed how it is and the shader present on the text which helps give it an old monochrome CRT vibe.

We've also been working on other features, but those will have to wait for when they're more polished and able to be shown off! Until then, I hope to keep you all posted as things progress!

[timeless-ephemeri]

devlog january '25

as one of my new years resolutions, i decided to commit to putting in gamedev work every month. i'll be trying to keep a monthly devlog to help keep me on track as well. i'm excited to finally be able to share some stuff about my game, though it's still very early days in development. the project title is vertical reality and it's going to be a 2.5d platformer with a focus on time-attack gameplay. you'll use various optical media-based powerups to try to rush through short, tightly designed vertical levels as fast as possible. my biggest sources of inspiration for it are the sonic games and neon white, you could think of it as a bit of a combo of those with plenty of other things and my own ideas thrown in.

what do i have so far?

i've worked off and on (more off than on thus far, i must admit) fleshing out concepts and building out a prototype. in terms of actual game, i've got a first pass on the basic character control and physics. there's still a lot of polish here and there on it, but mostly it's just down to turning dials until everything starts to feel good.

originally i was using godot's built in character controller, but i got pretty fed up by its limitations and largely black-boxed nature so i ended up building my own. i had to figure out a lot of things like how to integrate physics and how to handle floor snapping and edge detection. i had a surprisingly hard time really finding practical resources on this sort of thing, so i had to do a lot of trial and error and debugging and whatnot, but i was eventually able to come up with something that seems to work pretty well and that i have way more control over, so i'm quite happy with my progress on that end.

in terms of the concept side of things, i've got a pretty solid foundation. i recently set up a personal wiki (via a neat project called tiddlywiki) and i super duper recommend it if you're doing gamedev (or any sort of project that would benefit from some organized documentation). slowly but surely i've been fleshing out ideas for the game, everything from worldbuilding to ideas for the powerup cds. i've still got a lot to figure out the specifics on, but it's definitely coming together.

most recently i finished the design for the player character, river! the design went through a ton of iterations, and i'm pretty happy with what i ended up with. i've built out a model for them as well, mostly for internal use. having a rigged 3d model as reference for a character you draw a lot (or plan on, at least) is extremely handy, as it turns out.

what am i planning next

i have a few short term goals in mind. one is to build out a little test level and really start dialing in the physics until i have something properly good feeling. another is to figure out the animations system and start setting up some placeholder animations. i also want to implement the systems to handle the powerups and maybe start prototyping a couple of the most fleshed out ideas for those. on the concept side of things i want to start doing some concept art for some of the environment design. i also want to compile a bunch of art and music that fits the sort of aesthetic that i'm aiming for. beyond that i'd like to start developing the narrative more, and the place to start on that is probably making more characters.

closing thoughts

i'm still very new to gamedev, i'm learning as i go on a lot of things. despite the frustrations though it's so far been a really fulfilling experience for me. i always kind of assumed i wasn't smart or talented or disciplined enough to ever make a game, and a part of me still very much insists that. but with each bit of progress i chip away on this, the more viable it seems to be. i feel like i'm writing these more for myself than anything, but hopefully some people will take interest in the project. please don't be shy about commenting and asking questions if you're out there, it'll make it feel a bit less like shouting into the void of the internet.

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #8 | 10.29.21

Hi everyone! 

We are back with another update, and with #Devtober ending, quite a bit of progress has been made on Alaris! 

Sneak peek at what’s to come - in this devlog, I’ll be talking about updates to game mechanics, progress made to the game, and potential release dates for the Expanded Chapter 1 Release!

Read below the cut if you’re interested :D 

So since the last update, a lot of progress has been made regarding game mechanics and other edits to the Expanded Chapter 1 Release. Regarding progress of the Expanded Release, we are sitting at:

Writing: 100% Done | Completely Finished!

Script: 99% Done | Only Small Edits Left

Art: 95% Done | Only Small Edits Left

Code: 95% Done

As you can see, the Expanded Chapter 1 Release is VERY close to being finished! I mainly have small things left that I have to go in and fix or actually code into the game. 

For the script, I’ve finished the script for all the Free Time Dates that will be available in the Chapter 1 Release. Again, this will be a preview of the free time, in that you will only be able to pick one type of date for the release. Later chapters will include more dates so that there will be more diversity in the choices for players! For now, the Expanded Chapter 1 Release will only have one date option available, which you can invite four of the LIs to. The reason for this is because I didn’t want to have all the Free Time dates available for players to kinda just binge on this release and never really use/ skip past once the later chapters are released! I think this will fit best with the Chapter-Release schedule we have in place right now, but once the full Demo is complete (with all four chapters), players can really partake in the full scope of the Free Time feature by choosing a variety of different options! 

For those who aren’t as familiar with how Free Time will work, there will be specific portions in each chapter where players can participate in Free Time. During this part of the game, you can choose what kind of date you would like to do by choosing the location and then invite an LI of your choice! Later in the game, if affection is high enough, the LIs might even invite you instead! A lot of this inspiration comes from Tokimeki Memorial: Girl’s Side if anyone has ever played that game, but this will be a bit more specific to the plot of the game since players will be able to get some Easter Egg hints about the world of Alaris through these dates as well, so it also serves a worldbuilding purpose :) 

Aside from Free Time, I’ve also scripted the expanded story that will be included in the Expanded Chapter 1 Release. So there will be some additional content to access outside of just game mechanic stuff! 

A lot of work has been done on coding. Coding game mechanics, GUI, and all this other stuff. I showed a lot of the GUI updates in the last devlog, so on top of the Free Time feature, I’m happy to announce a working Codex for Alaris! In the Codex, you will unlock various entries while you play through the game, and I thought this would be helpful when navigating the world since there are quite a few worldbuilding elements, like Dragon Energy and others that I won’t spoil. I hope this helps to keep terms in check and also feel more immersed in the game without having to info dump all the time in the actual dialogue. So for people who really like worldbuilding, this is something they can access while players who don’t care so much about those components can get just the basics through the dialogue and plot! 

So Codex entries will unlock at certain points in the game, which you can see through the notification. The LI Codex entries are special in that they contain more expansive information compared to general terms or other characters. So for example, you can see Kayn has his general information on top of his Stats. As your romance with these characters develop, you might also be able to access that easily through the Codex in the future~ So just to recap, regarding the coded features for Expanded Chapter 1, there will be a Codex, the full Personality Feature (including a Stats page), the Free Time function, and the usual CG/ Gallery/ etc. access! 

Finally, regarding art, I’ve made some small changes to sprites. Etza’s shirt was fixed from the original Chapter 1 Sample so now their sprite will be cleaner hopefully - I do like the new texture of their shirt a lot more :D 

On top of that, there will be one new sprite added that will be shown in the expanded content. This one is a surprise, so you’ll have to play to find out who it is! I’ve also added some backgrounds for the expanded content and Free Time feature. And finally, I’ve edited the prologue art using a lot of art from Nimphadora (an artist that provides art packages on itch.io). The new art is so beautiful, and I’ve made some edits (just filters and overlays) to make it fit the mood and atmosphere of Alaris a bit better, but I do appreciate how the art style is very different compared to the rest of the game so adds to that storybook/ dreamy vibe that is present during the prologue piece. 

All in all, that’s all the updates I can think of right now. A lot of scripting and formally coding everything into the game as well as small edits to make the game look a bit more polished and refined for a more “final version” of Chapter 1. I’m hoping to have this done and released sometime in November. It’s hard to state exactly when, but the absolute latest will be about the 3rd or 4th week of November! I’ll keep everyone updated when I have a better idea since it’s a bit hard to really know for sure right now, but I hope you’re all looking forward to it! 

As always, feel free to follow me on itch.io or Twitter for more updates or donate at Ko-fi to support development <3

[funigami-games]

What we got right and what not for our Visual Novel Game Jam: Build 0.5 build and progress report.

check out the full post and see all sprites here - https://funigami.itch.io/the-princes-heart/devlog/283383/what-we-got-right-and-what-not-for-our-visual-novel-game-jam-build-05-build-and-progress-report

The Prince’s Heart is practically our first “brainchild”. And although I hate the term “child” since video games aren't anyone's child, but nothing more than entertainment products, that's how we creators usually behave with them. Of course, our first complete video game as a team is Dragon Gazer, a small 1000-word visual novel game for the O2A2 jam, we consider The Prince’s Heart to be our first “actual” project since it’s complete in terms of narration, character design, and worldbuilding.

But, like most parents with their first newborn, we made some critical mistakes that we should have foreseen in terms of production and deadline, but well... we didn't, and that's a hard-earned lesson that we should keep in mind for our next projects.

What we got right and what not

We were lucky enough to have with us Jacob Wilson, the person responsible for the entire casting and scouting process. Every single voice-over in our game has been voice acted by aspiring and professional voice actors, and I really think that the result will be amazing. More about our cast can be found here.

A.C. Kass made the outline really quick and wrote the entire story on time, giving the rest of the team the much-needed time to do voice-overs, compositions, SFX, coding, and sprite design. In a couple of days, we had a 16,000-word script ready to be coded and implemented.

And that's where we failed to understand that the project would get out of hand, considering that it would be practically impossible for a single artist to have eight characters and eight backgrounds made in a relatively short amount of time, while at the same time we were completing our O2A2 jam project.

What we learned as a team, is that a project should be realistically and not wishfully approached when there's a deadline. We should have either scratched the O2A2 project or decrease the necessary amount of game assets for The Prince’s Heart, etc some of the lines could be unified with other characters to save us time.

The future of the project

Despite the ominous mood I might have prepared you for, the project is progressing fine. All primary characters are designed, but probably we’ll have to do an early release of the game with the majority of secondary characters in flats, along with will the backgrounds.

I really wanted for this project to have character animation (it would be really cool to have the characters breathe), but it's not realistically possible.

What do we have ready as of this moment?

As I said, all main characters (the protagonist and his two love interests) are fully rendered with a wide variety of poses and expressions. Here's a visual representation of what has been done in terms of characters so far.

Prince Edward (Fully Rendered Version)

David (Fully Rendered Version)

Michael (Fully Rendered Version)

Check the rest of our sprites here https://funigami.itch.io/the-princes-heart/devlog/283383/what-we-got-right-and-what-not-for-our-visual-novel-game-jam-build-05-build-and-progress-report

As for the backgrounds, we’re still a long way from finishing them. Recently, we had two artists joining us, but I don't think that the time will be enough to have all the backgrounds fully rendered by the deadline. All we've done so far are sketches.

In terms of compositions, our composer has practically made a single track for every scene. SFX is still in production state, and we’ll probably have them in the next few days.

The voice acting is nearly complete, and I'm really proud of our voice actors. I'm a firm believer that if you can’t have proper voice acting for your game, it's better not to have at all. All of the VAs have done an amazing job, and I think that you’ll like what we have.

The scripting is 100% completed and transitions around 90% complete. Although I implemented everything, I still find things here and there that need to be adjusted as I alpha test the game. If things go as scheduled, all the transitions will be complete in two days from now (by August 15th).

Last but not least, our GUI is halfway there and will probably be completed by August 20th.

In conclusion, some things worked, some didn't, but we learned a bunch of stuff as a team from this project. What matters is for you, the players, to enjoy our game once it releases. We are looking forward for your feedback, and we’re thankful for your support and love!

[skeljack-devlog]

Log #0: Starting Out

This is the first of what will be weekly devlogs about Skeljack (working title), a game in early development by a very small part-time dev team. I’m Ave (professional software engineer and code-from-scratch enthusiast) and my partner-in-crime is Dex (artist & sound designer, fledgling developer, and repository of good design knowledge). 

SJ quite literally came to me in a dream - the basic premise is this: Skeljack is about Jack Winthrop, a student beginning his first year of college at a university for mages. You follow him throughout the school year, making friends, completing quests, passing classes, solving mysteries, and fighting weird and unusual monsters. He is also a skeleton, but don't tell anybody. The game is a turn-based RPG with life sim elements, set in a very colorful, spooky, and eccentric world with a mix of strange magic and modern technology. And also skeletons.

We’ve actually been working on SJ sporadically for a few months now, but haven’t had anything truly visual to show for it. This post won’t be visual either. It’ll outline the kind of progress we’ve made in coding, worldbuilding, and storybuilding, and next week’s post will contain some concept art and a gif or two. 

We initially started this game with an ‘unofficial game jam’ (work on getting a prototype down in 72 hours), where we managed to get a working dialogue tree up and running using nothing but HTML & JS. This was really encouraging progress, and Dex ended up writing some several hundred lines of dialogue just to showcase this system. 

When we started to move into the actual display & gameplay, we ran into a bit of a wall. We originally set out to do 2D and had chosen Phaser.js as our engine, but after playing Bug Fabl-es and discussing the pros and cons of different styles a bit, we settled on 3D with billboard sprites. 

Moving to 3D necessitated moving to a more robust game engine, because while Phaser.js does support 3D it’s fairly finnicky to work with and has no native support for any 3D modeling or scene creation. We ended up choosing Unity because - well, why not?

Since then, we’ve created our own way of handling moving 3D billboard sprites and have started on scene transitions (more on that next week). Unity’s a lot easier for less experienced coders to work on and has allowed Dex to contribute to coding work as well. 

Story and characters will be covered in a future devlog as well, but we can say that a significant portion of our time has been spent making a robust and in-depth story outline and fleshing out characters. We’ve been using Kanka.io, a very very new website that has a similar role to Campfire Pro or World Anvil. It’s meant for tabletop RPG campaigns but works very well for any kind of worldbuilding and character/story creation. Since this is a very character- and story-driven RPG, we need to make sure that this is reflected in all of our development, from level design to mechanics. We’ve been feeling optimistic about how all this fits together, and will dedicate devlogs just to that. 

That ends the brief intro summary and the devlog for this week. 

[mismatchedmimic]

Devlog - 08/09/19

Welcome to the start of my monthly dev logs, where I’ll be posting progress to help me keep track of it all and hopefully keep me focused as I let other people see progress.

Please bear with me if I sound a bit stilted. Never really written in this format before.

Anyway, since I shared a screenshot a month ago, let’s talk about this months progress.

This month I’ve completed:

- The first background that’ll be shown, a view over the town.

- 24 expression varients for the main character, Emma.

The background ended up pushing me to get some worldbuilding done so I could draw it properly, including making a map for the area and the village you’re seeing it from. This did mean the background took a lot longer to make but the research helped get a better sense of the town as a whole.

And here’s a preview of Emma with some of her expressions:

So where does that leave the project currently? Well the art is still in the early stages. Most of the characters have been drawn but lack expressions for the moment. I’ve been making test builds of the project with a first draft script to get a sense of the art that needs doing.

It’s still a long way off before even just the first chapter is ready to be shown but it’s all starting to take shape now I’ve started working on the final art.

[moralanxietystudio]

Waking up with a head full of ideas - Roadwarden Devlog

I need to say a few words about my recent lack of updates. Multiple issues, unrelated to the game, forced me to take a couple of weeks off. It doesn't mean I haven't made any progress whatsoever, it's just that there wasn't really time to handle full-time development and combine it with social media presence. Now I'm back on Twitter and Facebook, where you can find more WIP updates and other stuff, including worldbuilding prompts and ideas.

My main task right now is to finish all the writing related to the Clean Spear - the Roadwarden's first tavern, and pretty much the one human settlement that's the easiest one to reach at the beginning of the game. Next week, I'm going to have an in-detail dive into all the work that goes into the design of such an area and some of the core scenes related to it.

Writing allowed me to take a closer look at some problems that Roadwarden struggles with. All video games have to value communication between the game and the player, and sometimes it's difficult to realize when the information flow gets a bit muddy.

And this is what this devlog is going to be about - the new features and experiments that allow me to communicate information more efficiently.

Fixing an animation bug

Previously, when the player's ability (Force, Spell, Knowledge) had an option to unlock a new dialogue choice, an animation was supposed to show up. And I was sure it's working fine. Now I know that even in the game's demo the said animation was not displaying itself all the way through.

I figured out what was the cause of the bug, but I've also heard the players' feedback. Apparently, it's not always clear when the Attitudes become interactive. The simple change of color palette was not enough.

So the GIF above shows an example of how the new notification looks like. And if it's related only to a skill (the 6th icon), it works only for the selected image. It's much easier now to spot the new options.

I'm not saying this is the cleanest, best animation possible or that it won't be fully replaced in the future by something fancier. But the tech is now there. ; )

“Inactive” choices

From now on, I have an option to display new, “gray” choices as if they are present, yet inactive. But before we go any further, let's talk for a bit about the Hit Points.

HP in Roadwarden is a big deal. The game doesn't automatically end when you drop to 0 HP, and it's difficult to “heal” your character. Healing takes time, money or failing some sidequests. (There's going to be, for example, a quest during which you can either keep a healing potion or return it to the rightful owner.)

If you're healthy, you can handle the most tiring tasks. Lift, push or pull heavy objects; use tools to destroy things; fight and prevail. But if you're weak, these actions overwhelm you. You can't, for example, climb on a mountain when you are close to death.

Up to this point, the game was either:

a) hiding choices that were impossible to activate. But if, for example, you should be able to lift this really large stone, but the game doesn't display an option to do so - does that mean it's impossible to accomplish it, or maybe you're at a wrong place? You need more information than that.

b) allowing you to select a choice, and then informing you that you've failed at your task. But the choice could still be available after that, making it confusing - can I try again? Should I try again? What should I do instead?

Having the “inactive” choices allows me to present some information more clearly, especially since they don't have to be phrased in the same way as the “proper” choices. Maybe you are in the right place but at the wrong time? An “inactive” choice will give you that information. Maybe your HP is too low? The game makes it clear now.

These “inactive” choices are, following the video games tradition, gray. It means they're also related to “inactive” Attitude buttons and other “inactive” icons presented in the game. Such as the blocked areas on the map that you can't currently visit. Oh, and they're not responding to hovering, and nothing happens if you click on them. So they don't look that weird.

Thank you for your attention and see you next week!

[ahnmakes]

devlog # 7 // mapmaking (the procedural foundation: biomes, terrains and weather)

whew, it feels like it’s been a month since i last posted here!  in the last weeks before that devlog, i had been doing almost exclusively pathfinding work, stuff that requires a lot of intense math and coding, so i felt very excited to explore other directions this week.

oh, before we get too far into other updates, i do want to mention that i started a patreon, so that people (like you!) can support the game and, more generally, all of the educational content i’m aiming to create; please do go and support me there, even if it’s just a couple of dollars each month.  it helps out immensely and i’m posting some exclusive, behind the scenes content there for all of you to learn with me <3

so, anyway, this week has been full of coding up new systems, and i’ve been doing that almost entirely undirected.  i did start the player stat system, something which each unit could have or derive from in order to keep track of their stats - for that, i started by following a brackeys tutorial and pretty quickly got overwhelmed, i think mostly just because i feel like creating more freely and more visually.  so, pause on that.

instead, i decided to follow my desire to create a couple of systems that would allow me to create a lot of graphics or feeling for the game, with very little effort.  the first system that i dreamed of (i mean, i literally have been preparing code in my dreams) was for “biomes”.  it is wild to look back at devlog #6 and realise that .. this system really didn’t exist then, because it definitely exists now.

let’s get started - what do i mean by “biomes”?

well, as in ecology, a biome (by my understanding) represents the kinds of life that interact in a space, between the earth/soil/plants and the animals or other presences there.  speaking more specifically for zodaia (that’s the name of my game, by the way), a biome contains information about what kinds of terrains, weather patterns, and interactables (plants, trees, ores, animals/characters/npcs, things like chests) can exist in a given space.  

the intention behind the “biome”, conceptually, is to allow the player to explore different types of lands/locations and have them *feel* like different places with very specific characteristics, so that the player comes to understand what challenges and opportunities and other patterns to expect there - to create regions of environmental features.  and the intention, functionally, is to allow me to procedurally generate a number of environments by just defining a few parameters, making a lot more content for the game than what i could make designing each level by hand.

so, what might some of those parameters be?  what kinds of things do we need to create a “biome”? well, to start with, we might decide to name some of the biomes, themselves: which different regions would we like to create?  fortunately, this process was made especially easy because i had already had a number of biomes defined from my worldbuilding, notes i have written over the years of designing the game.  so, the player might be able to visit - for example - icy glaciers, high mountain plateaus, valleys, deserts, dense forests .. in total, i have defined 27 different biomes (if you join on patreon, you can find out exactly which ones!) based on something i call affinities -- basically a system of elements, something to talk about in another devlog.  

in short, i made a biome class to contain all of this info, giving each of the biomes a name and defining them by enums, an easy way of representing a predefined number of values and referencing them clearly later in code; instead of setting a range of numbers to represent the concepts, we can use words/letters which are easy to remember and much easier to understand.

next, i imagined that a biome might have “weather”, so a player might expect deserts to be dry, hot, and windy, while a glade might be especially humid or rainy or foggy.  should these also be stored in an enum .. or maybe their own class?  well, given that there are going to be different types of weather with their own different features, it might be helpful to make both an enum *and* a class, specifically as a scriptable object (also something i will talk more about in another devlog).  basically, this will allow me to say “okay which biome is this?” and enter a value, then say “okay which weather types are possible there?” and simply plug in appropriate values there, as well.  so, this is what a biome (as a scriptable object) looks like in the inspector - this one being for the desert type:

i standardised for each biome to have 4 possible weathers (the higher/earlier the weather, the more likely it is to occur) and if you look ahead, you’ll also see that each biome has 6 possible tile types - terrains - as well.

the terrains, which are also scriptable objects, define things like:

- which hex color/material/prefab to use

- the movement cost for that terrain type, and if it can be moved on at all (a bool, isWalkable, used by the pathfinding) - a range of possible offsets for its height (giving some texture to the landmass as a whole), and

- which kinds of interactables might spawn on that tile, if any

you can see here that the weather is set up similarly.

so, to go back to what makes up a biome, it’s actually a lot of information but each piece of that information can be configured easily and quickly to give reliable results.  because of this system, rather than a plain hex grid or one which is slightly colored and textured, i can now create a completely new type of land in around 30 seconds, something which can produce hundreds, thousands of variations for players to experience through different playthroughs.

this is one of the first example biomes i made, the “pools” biome.  though there are no textures on the hexes or models of grass and such showing what’s going on here, this biome represents an area where there is a lot of water, most of it being shallow, with some deeper spots and some grass and stone poking out of the water; in addition, by simulating time progressing (by clicking the time++ button), the weather would automatically change.  i’m not sure if it’s hard for others to imagine with mostly plain hexes at this point, but this moment was the very promising beginning of a more complete biome system.

and now, i’ll just do some show and tell, with more emphasis on the show - take a look at how this system developed over the course of a day or two.

me getting the first trees to randomly spawn on the map; percentage was too high, but the map certainly felt less empty haha (must have improved the UI at some point in here, too)

added some chance for grass to spawn in the pools biome (made the grass model with basic cube shapes in unity, a quick prototype).

made a volcanic region, just by setting that there should be tiles like magma and stone, then defining a few weathers for this area.

then, the gardens, with some trees, grass, rocks, and bushes -- again, these models will be replaced by much improved models i’ll make in blender.  the point was to get something working so that i could see how the system was growing; i’m finding it’s really important to focus on nearly just one thing at a time, rather than trying to balance a million systems and making measurable progress in none of them.  i was very pleased with this step forward!

added some flowers for visual interest (also made with cubes in unity!)

a beautifully clean desert biome.

and a glacier.

and while you are looking at these images, it’s really important to understand that a biome isn’t just one map, it’s an infinite number of potential maps.  the glacier i made above was made in just one click (after all the labor of creating the base system, of course), and i can now generate an endless number of distinct but similarly themed/feeling glaciers simply by clicking again, each possible map interacting beautifully with the pathfinding system we initially created.

this system is beginning to show some of the massive benefits i described in devlog #2, where i discussed whether i would approach the map-making in a more hand-crafted way, or a more procedural one.  as i said then, i decided i would start with the more procedural side of things since that is what i was less comfortable with, and seeing what this can do already - what a machine can create from the properties i’ve set up - is immensely inspiring to me.

i think we’ll pause there for today, and next time, i’ll probably jump into more of the making-the-map-interactable parts of my implementations.  as a teaser: did you know that those randomly generated trees, bushes, and rocks up above actually have items in them, things the player can pick up?

we’ll talk plenty about interactables and more environmental visuals in the next devlog.  until then, with love and more maps than i could ever possibly explore, ahn

// support me on patreon?

[novinitumd]

Crelog #1

(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)

First Novinitum D crelog! (creator log, i know very creative). These are basically like devlogs but for my specevo and worldbuilding projects. Entries where it's me updating yall on the behind-the-scenes stuff and also asking for feedback on occasion, maybe even a poll, we'll see.

In this entry I'll be discussing the progress I've made on the first taxon of the project, the infamous fish I've been spamming on my socials for the past week (it finally has a name!). And I'll also be discussing my process on the map and fleshing out the geological past and future of Novinitum D.

sneak peak into what this crelog features

[#1] -> Next crelog [#2] 🗒️Crelogs🗒️

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Operculaurisichthys pelagicus, the type species of Operculaurisichthys (yes that's the name people, write it down write it down!!!)

Enter Operculaurisichthys, the 'eared operculum fish'. This entire project only exists because one night I sat down, drew a made up fish (this one) and thought to myself "what if I started a seed world with this fish?". Now this figure is actually slightly innaccurate now but not noticably so to most people so I think it's fine using it in a crelog, updated figures will be used in its dedicated taxon article anyways.

I wanted to talk about it because 1. it's awesome, and 2. phylogeny.

As many of you know, I created this fish without any intention of clade in mind, that said however, I very much had pachycormids on my mind at the time because they sparked my fish anatomy hyperfixition (fish people will know why I've shot myself in the foot doing that). This means that I unknowingly made its anatomy nearly identical to a generalised pachycormid as pointed out by Sky Jung in a VC (check him out on twitter: @HBivittatus and insta: @teleostei_art). Jumping off of that observation, I created a modified phylogenetic character matrix based on the first matrix in Cooper et al., (2022) in Mesquite.

A little look into the character matrix within Mesquite, 130 characters and 30 taxa in this one

I'll go more in detail in its dedicated taxon article about what exactly was modified in some sort of phylogeny section probably.

After sorting out all the characters for the Operculaurisichthys spp. (yes there are multiple species, more about that in a future crelog probably) I imported the .nex file into TNT which I used to create the majority rule consensus tree you see below.

Everything before Euthynotus spp. is part of the outgroup, so I wouldnt pay them much attention, as you can see, this majority rule consensus tree is the result of 24 most parsimonious trees

The inclusion of Operculaurisichthys didn't break Pachycormidae to my surprise, which is incredibly impressive for a fish that was made with no clade in mind. As you can see its firmly nested within Hypsocorminae in a polytomy with Simocormus and the more derived hypsocormines, which I find incredibly interesting for the afformentioned reason.

Anyways that's all I'm gonna talk about regarding Operculaurisichthys, so if you just came for that now's your chance to leave. Onto GPlates stuff and plate tectonics!!!

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A sneak peak at the GPlates project file, just the sea side tho can't give everything away too early can I now ;P

What is GPlates? I think their website puts it best "GPlates is a plate tectonics program (where you can) manipulate reconstructions of geological and paleogeographic features through geological time." What I'm doing is simulating the plate tectonics through geological time to give my world a realistic look and assure I can keep that same realistic look throughout the course of the project.

I'm using the GPlates portion of Artifexian's worldbuilding series (link to the playlist here) mixed with referencing Worldbuilding Pasta's blog (link to their blog here) which the GPlates portion of Artifexian's worldbuilding series derives from. Artefixian simplifies a lot of stuff to suit his workflow - which is valid - while Worldbuilding Pasta's original method is closer to the level I like, so I cross reference a lot of stuff.

One of the many island arcs on the planet

However one thing I do which is different to both is create the continental shelf portion of my island arcs every 50 million year timestep. This sounds stupid and tedious, but makes sense when you take into account the fact that I'll be making multiple of these maps every 50 Million year timestep or so (still deciding on that). So having that reference and being able to simulate the building of terrain over time is incredibly useful.

Ontop of this I'm also adding an accurate amount of terrain using the equation: (island arc length * age of island arc in MY) / 2 (which is taken from this Artifexian video). This is an incredibly tedious process but imo worth it in the end.

Earlier version of the above island arc showing that it's all one connected element, please understand how tedious this is lmao

So yeah! That's pretty much all I'm willing to reveal right now, hope this gives yall an idea what you're in for and also a look at my creative process (aka my flavour of autism). There will definitely be more crelogs in the future, and more frequently as I continue to make more progress in developing the major parts of the world.

For the first time, thanks for reading!

[royal-mortician]

Hey all, so my next viddy game project now officially has a devlog over on itch.io that I wanted you all to know of. I’ll be posting completed pixel art, gifs and wips - and of course news of anything of import - on here as usual, but if you’re interested in the project I recommend following the thread since our programmer Slyonics will (hopefully) be keeping it updated with his progress. Anyway, without further hubbub,

🌱✨ Rocksprout Village ✨🌱 is an upcoming 2d action-adventure rpg where you explore, befriend cute animals and help a community grow.

We’re going to have a customizable player character, pets, mounts, town customizing, dynamic dungeons and a few other features that we personally think are super cool. We have a lot of worldbuilding, lore, story content and general game design finished, and a good amount of programming done. Assets have been lagging behind a bit because of my School Shit, but with that now taken care of I will pick up the pace. Thanks so much for your interest and for supporting me, you all are angels I love 💙

Also, if anyone has ideas for a good platform to post devlogs, updates and generally promote our game and build a playerbase, please let me know. We’ll be using itch.io and probably twitter and I also post updates on here and my personal fb account, if you know of anywhere else that can be used for this sort of thing, please let me know.