Devlog 0: Starting a devlog & how we got here

After about 3 months of on-and-off development, note taking and meetings: I am finally going to start creating devlogs, beginning with this one!

To start I would like to explain how we got to where we are now. A few months ago my school together with a school in the Netherlands hosted a GameJam that I happily joined, which lasted around 3 days. Besides the yearly jams my school hosts exclusively for our students, I hadn’t really had the chance to take part in these kinds of team projects with total strangers which was both scary and exciting. Despite my fears however, it turned out really fun! We managed to create a game called “Epoch”, and even though we missed the turn-in deadline by 5 minutes I felt extremely proud of our teamwork and game!

Fast forward to before summer break started, having finished most of my classes I felt a bit bored and I wanted to make something so I started prototyping an input system which would let the player customize their keybinds and also allow me to create a mechanic with timed inputs. 

I grew to like the system which led me to start thinking about how fun it would be to build a game off this, even though it can be kind of generally applied to most things. At some point I got the idea of making a movement focused 3D game where one's movement and attacks would be heavily influenced by input combos and timings. I started taking notes in obsidian, making info-graphs with a website my teacher had recommended, and kept on brainstorming new ideas all the while trying to keep myself as realistic as possible to avoid scope creep.

I remembered that a grab & throw mechanic was a central part of the previously mentioned game jam project, of which I decided to remake and implement into the combat concepts. Despite the fun in it, seeing lots of popular fast-paced movement heavy games where the player can simply run and gun through entire levels without another thought did feel slightly uninspiring. Therefore, the original idea for combat turned into having the player grab objects and throw them at enemies in order to deal damage and cause different effects depending on the object and the thing getting hit. However because I am a sucker for magic, the idea took a slight turn to where instead of throwing objects directly, the player would imbue an object with a spell and then throw it in order to cast said spell. 

I threw together a bunch of world building ideas and concepts in order to help me brainstorm and develop further ideas.

About a week into summer break I felt like this project could really be something that I wanted to continue with and even put on my portfolio, and because of this I really wanted to find more people to work on it with. Since I had already taken inspiration from the previous game jam project, I decided to ask one of my newfound friends Dylan, of whom I had very cleverly tricked into staying in touch with me by infodumping about dungeon meshi, if he and the others from his school wanted to join in on the project. Not too long after, I got a reply saying that he would happily work on it with me during summer which made me extremely happy! Having mostly been working solo on projects before, I know how difficult it can be to get oneself to finish a project or even move forward with it alone. Now having a teammate who I’ve worked productively with before and who is fun to brainstorm with feels really awesome!

Now 3 meetings, mechanic additions, reworks, a few minor inconveniences and lots of ideas later; Summer is already over, and yet I feel more hopeful than ever about development!

And for you who are reading, I promise that the other devlogs won't be as much about me as this one and more focused on the game. Hope you stay tuned and hopefully I’ll be able to do regular updates. Toodles!