The first devlog!

Hello to anyone who managed to find our little project! My name is Casey and I am working on this 2D RPG game together with my wife Jane! We created Butterfloop and released it on 05/08/2023, took a short-ish break and now we are back and ready for our next project! The purpose of this devlog is to introduce you to our idea, give some behind the scenes insights and offer a place for you to provide feedback if you would like. Expect an updated log every week!

We decided to try our hands at a 2D RPG game for our second project for several reasons. We love RPG games, we knew we would want to try to make one eventually and the genre provides so many opportunities to learn new and important/fundamental skills for game devs. I really wanted to learn how to make a turn based battle system, a character progression system and how to implement dialogue and story telling scenes. Jane wanted to learn how to create character sprite sheets, tile sets for building environments and actually writing/planning out the story. Its a perfect fit. 

I should also say that I am currently working through a 2D RPG course on Udemy. Here is the link.

https://www.udemy.com/course/unity2drpg/

This course has been great so far and it will be very clear to anyone who has completed it that my systems will be almost 100% ripped from here. Of course I will tinker with things and make it my own, but it would be silly to try to recreate an entire inventory system when I have access to a working one that I worked through and learned from the course. I wanted to have the course completed before we started on this project however I am only about halfway, but I was getting antsy to start this project.

The game takes place in a fantasy-medieval setting, will feature 2D pixel art and a turn based battle system. The player will have a couple zones to experience random battles and gain gold and xp. There will be additional party members who join half way through, a shop to spend your gold and upgrade your gear and a couple boss encounters as well. The music will be royalty free music that fits the world as best as possible. The SFX will also likely be royalty free. Our goal is to provide a great audio experience, but we are not investing actual money into this so we will do our best. The main point of all this is just to make sure it works and provides a short, but complete experience.

I am also going to be implementing proper version control this time! I will setup a github repo and do my best to maintain it. I have never worked with version control on anything serious before so it will be a learning experience as well but I understand its importance and feel I should get used to it early in my career. I am excited to get started on that. 

Please keep in mind both Jane and I work full time jobs so we are trying to schedule everything around that. One challenge I have already experienced is the occasional day after work, feeling too tired or burned out to work on game dev. Game dev is very fun to learn, but it can also be incredibly difficult. Sometimes its tough to win the mental battle to grit through it. I am also a gamer myself, so sometimes I just want to play some games after work. These things will happen, and it has to be ok that they will happen. The idea is to limit them, and I think we do a pretty good job of that. I aim to prove it by finishing this project! I will try not to bring this up in every log, but I do think its important for people to understand. Our deadlines and milestones are all scheduled around full time jobs and would be much different if we did game dev full time.

Ok so with that said, our first week's priorities are pretty simple to start. My goal is to get the github repo created and working, create the project in Unity, get a basic player controller working and my area transition system. The player will be able to walk around and move from scene to scene without any issues. Jane will be working on the main character. It is her first time working on a human character so its a bit scary and nerve-wracking. Her natural talent lies with scenery and more realistic images but she is looking forward to learning the process and expanding her skillset. Once she gets started, she is confident it will become less scary and more exciting to work on. Her goal is to have the basic sprite sheet started and able to be expanded on as we both learn more. 

That is about all I wanted to talk about on this first devlog. If you made it this far, why don't you comment below and tell me how you deal with burnout in game dev. How do you balance playing games and making games? What motivates you through the hardest moments of game dev? Especially if you work a different full time job at the same time. 

Stay tuned for next week's vlog and thanks for reading!