That very awkward and dreadful feeling when you learned a bunch of new things and decide to optimize an ongoing project, but starting over is easier than fixing what's already there.

#gamedev #indiedev #solodev #gamejam

This was my submission to @piratesoftware.live GameJam 15. It ran from July 17th 2024 to July 31st 2024.

winterknave-games.itch.io/tenebraid

Someone please explain to me why Blender defaults to CPU rendering instead of the GPU.

I just learned you need to save the transformation in Blender before you export them into Godot if you want your gridmap tiles to display properly. Ctrl + a is the button.

#protip #gamedev #indiedev #solodev #godot

With the @piratesoftware.live #gamejam 16 around the corner, I'm thinking about my design objectives:
- 3D
- Character movement
- Projectiles
- Enemy with movement and attack AI that isn't glorified RNG
- Status effects (I think they're neat to code)

Aiming for 3+ across the scores.

I think I'm going to aim for the June Next Fest. I can probably have a working demo by February, but it won't have a high level of polish. The UI and Steam page are actually my main concerns. I don't expect to make a profit, but I want to make a strong first impression.

Working on some backend math for citybuilder gameplay and wondering why I thought tracking building Expenses and Revenue separately seemed like a good idea when they can easily be combined into one variable. Also wondering how committed I am to sunk-cost fallacy.

Had any interesting idea about coding temporary effects.

Add a child node with a timer, arrays to identify affected building types, and variables. When the timer runs out, emits a signal to parent to child.queue_free() and recalculate stats. Very clean if it works.

#godot #gamedev #indiedev

Building construction and basic stat calculations are done, and the UI is updating as needed without crashes. Looks like the basic mechanics are ready. The UI needs a few more features to facilitate testing, then I can start working on derived stats and the gameplay loop.

#indiedev #gamedev #godot

Success: The basic UI can now build and change buildings.

Failure: Building stats are not being calculated like they should be based on nearby buildings. Time to debug some Area3Ds and signals.

#godot #gamdev #indiedev #indiegames

Project update: After scaling down the mechanics, the basic code for building construction is now done. The next step is to tweak the skeletal UI to test and debug as needed, then refine the math behind what those buildings do.

#indiedev #gamedev #godot

I hope all that code I deleted was as redundant and inefficient as I thought it was.

Still struggling with the balance between complexity and functionality. I think the correct decision is to downscale further to focus more on the basic gameplay loop and provide players with additional options through secondary mechanics instead.

More game design thoughts.

WKG1's city zones have three tiers of wealth, five industries, and four specializations (including the default). Since their effects interact with other zones according to their Wealth/Industry, that's 900 combinations of bonuses and penalties.

#indiedev #gamdev

In Project WKG-1, city zones affect other zones within an area. With three tiers of wealth, five industries, and four possible specializations per zone, this creates many combinations, so the concept has to be scaled down.

#indiedev #gamedev

Now officially announcing Project WKG1, I guess. Professional video game developers give their projects cool codenames, but I prefer numbers. They're easier to keep track of.