Wrong Dev Blog - First Entry
Hello! This is my first entry in what I call the Wrong—and oh boy, it could be wrong—Game Dev Blog. My main idea is to share my experience while developing a prototype game I am designing and programming. I don’t have a proper name for it yet, and I still want to organize any copyright thing before I publish anything beyond images or a few snippets.
What is the game?
In this game, you play as a security manager. You manage resources like money to place guards, cameras, and traps in a tower-defense style around stores with an urban sci-fi fantasy aspect. In a world inhabited by creatures from all across the fantasy spectrum and dominated by a fully automated corporation, you go through your everyday tasks while navigating the complex moral scenarios presented by the environment.
What is the Gameplay like?
The gameplay can be summarized as a mixture of elements between a tower-defense game, a resource management simulator, and a point-and-clicker game.
The game has two main views:
- Isometric Level View:
This is the view from where the player can see and navigate the complete store. The customers can be seen walking around, interacting with the different product types and between themselves.
- Office View:
In the office, the player can see the store only through a security screen. There, the player can read the news, play the store music, make phone calls, read the compliance rules, and all his active requirements. The core of the gameplay is still a secret surprise I don’t want to spoil or advance before having a more robust showcase of it. But there are a couple of very interesting features I will be publishing in the next entrances.
Is there a Narrative?
Yes, the game has a narrative system that mixes elements of The Stanley Parable and Papers, Please, among other ideas.
The narrative of the game is deployed in a recursive system. For reasons I still do not want to comment on, the Rogue-lite structure will play an interesting role in advancing the player through the narrative universe built in this game. Like in many interactive fictions, I would like the player to play over and over to find the mysterious corners the narrative system has to offer. To encourage that, many of the player variables are maintained, so each time you can go to further weirder places of the game.
What is the current status?
The following list best describes the current prototype status:
- Player Inventory
- Description: The player can purchase items from unlocked suppliers.
- Status: Done
- Dialogue System
- Description: The player can read dialogues and make text-based choices on different moments of the game
- Status: Done
- Job Suppliers
- Description: The player can unlock and be hired by a job supplier. A game level is loaded depending on the job the player has or doesn’t have.
- Status: Done
- Item Suppliers
- Description: The player can unlock item suppliers and purchase unlocked items from them.
- Status: Done
- Item Shop
- Description: The player can purchase items from suppliers. The money can come from either the job budget or from a personal one.
- Status: Done
- News System
- Description: A calendar-based system where the player can read the stories of the world through news and publicity. In this system, the player will find many puzzles that can help him navigate difficult scenarios in the stores
- Status: Done: Done, needs extension.s
- Compliance
- Description: Base system with rules on how to handle your behavior and the stores. They can be unlocked and have expiration dates. The player receives rewards and penalties from them.
- Status: Done
- Request
- Description: Job and Item Supplier can make requests to the player that will expire at some point. This can give different rewards or penalties to the player.
- Status: Done
- Calendar
- Description: Clock and days advance and interact with date-based features.
- Status: Done
- Recursive System
- Description: The player can lose and restart the game without losing some of his achievements.
- Status: Done. New game dialogues must be implemented.
- Calendar
- Description: Clock and days advance and interact with date-based features.
- Status:
- Recursive System
- Description: The player can lose and restart the game without losing some of his achievements.
- Status: Done
- Feature Name: Using Items in Store
- Description: The player can place items from his inventory into the game scene.
- Status: Only Guards can be instantiated. Base behavior in development.
- Clients in Store System
- Description: he clients of the store move around, deciding what to do inside the store.
- Status: Done, needs extension.
Incoming challenges
I decided to start writing this blog because now comes the hard part. For te last months I’ve been doing the main systems that will make the narrative move forward. But now, I need to start implementing the core interactions and game loops into the game. The management of guards and clients once inside the play level is the real challenge and is what begins next week when I start adding the guards and items into the game level.
Why is this wrong?
The reason this is wrong is because I spent the last 2 months programming the surroundings of something I will just now start testing as a game in itself. This could’ve, and probably should’ve, been developed the other way around if the core loop seems to work.
What has been good about it?
During the whole process I’ve been able to fully grasp the type of interaction I want to design, so now the game loop will have much more interactive and semantic substance if it works as expected. On the other hand, I’ve been able ot understand the narrative system I’m deploying in a much deeper sense. I’ve been reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and I can see much clear how language games are becoming a thing in this design. Also, I will use many of these systems in other games I’ll develop in the future.
Ok, next week I’ll write on how it all went wrong with the item instantiation process I have in mind. For now, I’ll go back to my spreadsheets.