Devlog Start

First devlog post for a new game!

I haven't done devlogs in the past but I thought it would be fun to start doing them for my games to track my progress and share it with others. 

- Background -

I am making a game for the University of Maryland Game Development Club 2023 Spring semester game jam. The jam started last week (from when I am writing this) on Tuesday the 28th of February 2023 and I have until the 27th of March to finish it. The jam started with the very interesting topic of Existential Crisis and Bootleg. I am sure most people will probably assume bootleg to be used as knock off but I decided to take it in a different direction. Bootlegging turns out to have origins as a word from 1900s prohibition where gangsters would actually hide booze in their boots to smuggle it between bars. This discovery made me fairly convinced to do some sort of game involving smuggling (or creating illegal goods). I had no idea how to use existential crisis though. Some early ideas for this game was a noir style game as a bartender at the start of prohibition (being put out of business is existential, right?) ,  the dead internet theory (everyone on the internet is actually a robot, how spooky!), and a bit out of left field - a literal boot and literal leg (existence is pain).

- The Game -

I decided that those games ideas really wouldn't fit the tone (or be any fun) so I built off one of my smaller ideas of how to create a feeling of existential crisis: you are very small in a vast universe. That's right! what if I could make a game where being stranded in space was a core mechanic. Obviously this lends to a very interesting sci-fi setting with space ships and intergalactic travel, which let me handily fit in bootlegging. As a throwback to the noir boys the game will have you play as a space smuggler traveling across the galaxy Oregon trail style. The idea is that the game will focus on inventory management (illegal goods), resource management (fuel and sanity), and random events (you have contracted space dysentery).

This game doesn't have a name yet but I'm sure I will think of one at some point. 

- Art Choices

I really wanted to do something different with the art style than in my past 2D games so I'm trying to make a 2.5D type game where the character and all important objects are 2D while the environment is 3D. Since I am no good at art this has led me to use pixel art for the 2D segments and make some blender models for the 3D bits.

So far it looks very barebones... But I see the potential! A little bit of post processing goes a long way to improving a boring scene

- Programming

For this game I really want to have a galaxy that feels like it has real history. I want to have a giant galactic map with over a hundred unique star systems you could possibly visit, each with its own faction and challenges. To make this work I created several different classes: Galaxy, Region, Solar (star system), and Faction. These will help me organize my galaxy in an easy to generate way (did I mention wanting the galaxy to be procedurally generated?). The galaxy is a class that will help me change overarching parameters and make it easy to reference each of its parts. Regions have one associated faction vary in size and have a collection of star systems in them. Solars are what I am calling star systems in my code (I tried calling them just systems and it overwrote the System class...) and will contain a variety of envirment based factors like habitability, or temperature which will feed into the culture factors like politics and wealth. Factions will characterize each "individual" you interact with being a  caricature of that factions ideas. Each faction will have a set range that their Solars' culture stats will draw from making them similar.

  So far I have managed to generate this sweet looking thing where every point of light is a Solar that you could possibly visit. I accomplished this using a neat concept I have never really explored before... A heatmap!

Its a small little thing only 80x80 pixels, but it does a good job. I used a bit of Perlin noise to space the Solars in a more natural way and each Solar decreases the likely hood of another Solar will be placed next to it up to a certain radius depending on its size. Speaking of size, something interesting with the big map that you may have noticed is that star size and color are connected! The colors are not final as the tiny blue stars are way more noticeable than the red giants. However, I was struggling to get the colors right without making the galaxy look like it was celebrating thanksgiving. I want to add some some of particle system or 2D texture in the background to try and fill all the empty space with something more interesting (Stardust!).  

- Things I am working on -

For the next few days I will likely switch gears to focus more on the inside of the spaceship, maybe even add terminals you can interact and definitely multiple rooms. You can't see it in the still images but my camera control scripts are working quite well and should make it easy to implement multiple rooms. Other than that, I really want to implement a basic skeleton of the quest and navigation system where you can select a target star based on a mission and the ship will "automatically" plot a course for you (visiting as many Solars in between as possible for more opportunities for events!). However, I am worried that it may  become an unoptimized mess that will take too much of my precious time if I start now (it will likely have to wait until the weekends).

- Bye! -

I had the idea to start doing devlogs for this game when I started working on it last week but I didn't actually remember to do it until today. Hopefully as things pick up I can start doing logs more often.