Much of it was spent on creating villagers to populate Luckstone with. A lot of these have existed in my head for some time, but I hadn’t had the skills to bring them into pixel form. Don’t get me wrong – I still lack those skills – but I know enough now where I don’t feel super embarrassed about it. Check below to see everyone!
Beyond that I added a shop and shopping mechanics, plus some weird and tangential stuff – like scratch tickets you can buy at the store. I also began work on a female main character – a long overdue task I’ve been putting off on account of my inability to make good looking characters.
There’s also been a lot of Persona 5, which is a Good Game. So, maybe go buy and play that, huh? You’ll see a lot of Persona influence in Village Monsters…daily activities, personable monsters from all walks of myth and legend, and maybe even anime waifus!*
The state of our WARP CORP continues to hold steady at ~pretty good~
The Extinction-Level-Event (ELE)is holding steady at ~43 weeks away. Neat!
I mentioned in last sprint’s retrospective that the week of a release is always incredibly motivating – the same can be said for the week after.
I haven’t had much feedback on the release I put out last week…to put a finer point on it, I’ve had actually no feedback. Like, at all. That’s probably not good, but I also don’t think I can read too much into it.
Things are going fine from a financial perspective. Not much to say – same as before
SPRINT GOALS
With much of the systems nailed down I’m now shifting focus to more “content” – things like creating villagers, populating different screens and other areas to explore, iterating over what I already have, and so on. Frankly, it’s been a ton of fun, but I am having a harder time finding a rhythm to the whole thing.
Technical stuff has a clearly defined endpoint – the thing works, the bug fixed, and so on. Not so with creative stuff…I could iterate over his fat dwarf forever, but should I? Probably not.
Anyway, the main goal this week is to start mapping out and working on the main gameloop. I have systems, but nothing really fits together yet. A few thoughts on how to tie it all together:
A shop in which you can buy and sell stuff
A house in which you can furnish and display items in
A quest system (what I’m calling ‘Mysteries’) to drive you forward
I think it’s possible to at least get started in all 3 of these before the end of the week
It was a big week, y’all – it’s a new release! Of my game! Village Monsters!
Release weeks are always going to feel rad, and this one was no different. I love that rush of excitement I get in the lead-up to the release – I absolutely do my best work when I know people are going to play what I’m making
I’d like to say it’s some due to some sort of motivational thing, but in reality it’s all about, uh, shame – “ugh, people are really going to see thisterrible thing I made? Guess I have no choice but to make it less terrible, huh?”
Regardless, you can go experience my shame for yourself if you’d like – if you do, I’d love your feedback!
Welcome to another edition of Feature Friday! Yet again I’m here to take you all on deep dive into one of the many wonderful features and systems you can find in Village Monsters
Today, I’m going to talk about holidays.
Save the date
As you may already know, there’s a full calendar system in Village Monsters – every day is different than the one before it, whether it’s shop schedules, weather, seasonal items, and all sorts of other stuff.
Of course, a big part – and indeed, perhaps the best parts – of any year are the various events and holidays that pepper the calendar. Village Monsters is no different!
There are many events to discover each month, and they can range from as big as major holidays that overall the entire town, to reoccurring events like fishing tournaments, to very local events like villager birthdays, bowling, and Anime Night.
Indeed, the calendar is so important that there’s an entire tab in your Compendium that keep tracks of the various happenings around town. You’ll definitely want to check this section periodically so you can keep track of what’s coming up – for instance, you don’t want to show up to the fishing tournament with a crummy rod and amateur fishing skills, right?
As with most things, everything here is WIP
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Each event will bring some new wrinkle to village life – new activities to enjoy, exclusive items to buy and collect, and visitors to talk to.
As you can likely guess, many of the holidays and events in game have analogs in the real world, though each one is sure to have its own unique twist.
For example, the Good Egg Day – which occurs the end of Early Spring – will seem pretty familiar and, ahem, relevant to certain events going on this weekend.
ORIGINAL HOLIDAY, DO NOT STEAL. TM TM TM.
Major holidays won’t just introduce new visitors or activities – in some cases, the entire village, background music, and even the UI will get a themed overhaul. Villagers will of course take part in the festivities as well, and even areas outside the village may have some secrets to find during certain special days.
Above all, I want holidays to feel like a big deal, something that you genuinely look forward to. I think it’s easy (for both designer and player) to fall into a checklist-trap – you wake up to a new a holiday and think, “Ok, new items bought…check. Holiday activities exhausted…check. Now what?”
That stuff is part of it, of course, but I don’t want it to be the only things you think of when a holiday rolls around. I’m hoping that if I can make it seem like the village itself is genuinely excited about holidays then you, the player, will be too.
A new full moon means a new version of Village Monsters for you to explore. I’m happy to announce that the latest Were-Release (what is this?), code named “Pink Crow“, is now officially released.
As with past releases, things are still very early. However, unlike past releases, Pink Crow is much more indicative of the game I’m making, and I’m really happy with what I was able to get done in the last couple months or so.
The truly massive change log can be found below, but here’s a summary: nearly everything is different and new.
If you’re interested in following games in early development, and want your feedback to shape a game in the making, then please take a look!
Player movement has been completely revamped with new actions, better feel, and a new collision system
Gamepads are not only support now, but are actively encouraged
Many system simulations are active, including time, weather, lighting, and more
Lots of really rad music has been added thanks to ETI user permanight
A toolbelt has been added to access your various tools, like your net and fishing rod
Oh yeah, and there’s fishing now. Equip your rod and go find a body of water
New critters to find and catch
Lots of new items and objects to pick up, throw, kick, or otherwise look at
Hey, there’s a raft now
Several new villagers have moved into town. Say hello!
The village area has been trashed and completely remade with new buildings, decor, and lamps, and more
Nearly every single sprite has been either redone entirely or improved
(they’re still bad. sorry)
You won’t be teleported randomly around when exploring or exiting / entering buildings
Lots of bugs fixed and an equal amount introduced
Lots of new UI changes
A “draw order” system allowing for smarter layering
You can explore areas outside the village – have fun!
New secret stuff
New weird stuff
New ???
Full List
Player & Actions
Movement Improvements
Tweaked the movement code to give it an overall better feel
Fixed bug related to footsteps either triggering too much or not enough
Increased speed of sprinting
Made sprint a toggle
When using a controller, movement speed is based on analog stick pressure
MAJOR: Controller Support
You can now play the entire game with a gamepad
Lantern at night
Toggle with “T” for now
Added a lantern to help light the way at night
Dialog timing changes
Dialog should overall be easier to read and also easier to skip through
Persistence
Player object has been persisted across all rooms
Player Authority created to manage creation and tracking of player object
Player location will be maintained between room transitions
Shadow changes
Removed ‘hardcoded’ (and bad) shadow
MAJOR: Completely revamped collision system
Collision is handled via tile instead of objects
Collision is much more performant
You can no longer walk over things like water
MAJOR: New Action: Roll
Rolling moves a bit faster, but is primarily used for shaking and breaking things
Roll into trees to make items (and birds) fly out
Roll into pots to break them and pick up bits
Rolling is on a cooldown
MAJOR: New Action: Pickup & Throw
Some items can be picked up and thrown
You may find secrets and other valuables by throwing everything you can
Pots can be thrown to create bits
New Action: Kick
Walk into some items – like a ball – to kick them around
Kicking may be useful in the future. It currently isn’t.
MAJOR: Toolbelt
A new UI element called the ‘toolbelt’ has been added
Use the toolbelt to cycle through tools (like fishing rod, bugcatching net, and lantern)
Inventory Grouping
Items are now grouped within the inventory
Hobbies & Activities
MAJOR: New Hobby: Fishing
Players can now fish for, uh, fish!
Go to any body of water, select your fishing rod, and press the Use Tool button to fish
A new fishing “minigame” has been added
You must cast your hook and reel it in strategically to attract fish
Watch out for your line tension – if that breaks, you lose the fish
A boat has been added with which you can fish from
The boat has a very boat-y feel to its movement
Added a torch to the boat
Fish are added to your inventory
Bug Catching changes
Holding the “Use Tool” button while the net is equipped will cause the player to enter ‘critter stalking’ mode
You’ll move slower while stalking, but bugs will be less skittish
New Critter: Sun Fly
Added the noctornal sun fly
Sun flies glow and act similarly to Sea flies
New critter fleeing behavior
All fleeing critters now fade into the background as they run
New critters: Butterfly Leaders
Monarch, Emperor, President, and Caeser butterflies have been added. Catch ’em all
S-Fly Spawner
Fixed issue preventing flies from spawning by the pond
Better ‘annoying buzzing’ behavior (they won’t just congregate around your beard)
New Gatherables
More than half a dozen new mushrooms types have been added. You’ll have to hunt them all down!
Villagers, Dog, & Other Entities
Portrait Changes
Added villager names underneath the portrait
New Ambient Creatures
Owls that fly overhead at night
Crows now hang around and will scatter when you try to get close
Dog Bug Fixes
Fixed returning fetched items from directly up / down
Fixed issue with sprite offsets that made the dog changing directions look mega goofy
Migrated to new movement system
Path tileset
A new tileset was created for paths and the entire village and surrounding areas have been pathed
New Villager: Lindwyrm
He’s a dragon, and he helps runs the Historical Society
New Villager: (Post-Punk Pixie Postman)
She’s unnamed for now
In the future, she’ll handle all postal services in town
Village, Buildings, Decor
New External Decor: Streetlamps
Streetlamps now exist in the village and help light the way at night
There are a couple of varieties
Made village lake less ugly
Thanks to the magic of auto-tiling
Postal Service (?)
You’ll find a whole bunch of mailboxes around town
They’ll help you identify buildings you aren’t sure of
New door behaviors
Instead of going into buildings automatically, you need to press the Z key or A button
This was done to prevent accidental building transitions
New color palettes!
MAJOR: New village buildings to explore
Mock’s House
Historical Society
Treasure Chest House
Skull House
Revamped interiors
Less ugly overall
Better collisions (meaning that collisions actually exist)
No more weather indoors (lol)
MAJOR: Music
Several tracks of music have been added to the game…
Morning track
Afternoon track
Evening track
Night track
Music fades in and our at each hour change
A nice bell toles during the changing of hours
New Items
Pots
Create bits when smashed
Bits
Used as currency
A new UI element has been added to track bits
A pleasant SFX plays when you pick up a bit
New detours
A gacha machine can be found somewhere. Spend your bits wisely
Helpful notes?
A number of notes and other signs have been erected around the town and outskirts
Pedestals in the historical society
Items in your inventory can be placed on pedestals in the historical society
In the future, this’ll be how you complete your collections
Areas
MAJOR: New areas to explore
Crossroads
Outskirts Forest
A whole lotta trees and other vegetation were created for this area
Maybe you’ll find other things there – like mushrooms. Or a TV
Outskirts Lake
Have fun sailing around the lake on the raft
MAJOR: Improved area transitions
Transitioning between screens and rooms now places the player in the correct place
New vegetation
Additional trees, stumps, etc. have been created
Simulation & Systems
MAJOR: Lighting Engine FX
With darkness comes an actual lighting engine around the player, light sources, and other objects
Current objects with lighting:
Player (via torch)
Streetlamps
Sun Flies
MAJOR: Time Concepts
Added the ‘concept’ of week, month, and year
Time advances following these rules
A week has 7 days, a month has 4 weeks, and a year has 6 months
MAJOR: Weather based on weather patterns
Weather now is based on specific patterns. New patterns created:
Clear
“Seattle” (mostly drizzle all day)
Snow
The start of the new day randomly selects a new weather pattern for that day
Calendar UI Element
A UI element of the current date and season has been added to the existing clock UI element
The tree and colors of this element change throughout the seasons
Day changes
A friendly rooster greets the morning
A friendly coyote greets the night
The SFX pleasantly fades in and then back out
Fixed a bug that prevented the popup from telling you the actual time of day
Ambient Cloud Cover
You may now see the occasional cloud shadow pass by
Clouds only show up during daylight hours
Weather Bug Fixes
Weather no longer ocurrs indoors
Rain should now behave properly even when it’s heavy
Technical Weather Changes
The manager for time and weather has been combined for convenience
All existing daylight filters have been converted to surface + blending
Added moon phases
New, Crecent, Gibbous, and Full
Weather SFX
Added rain sounds when it rains
Improved wind sounds
Some sorta…weird…glitch…thing?
They’ve been seen around the crossroads
The east and western roads have been closed until further notice
Completely revamped the clock system
Went from 8 times of day to just 4: Morning, Day, Evening, Night
Menus & UI
Notification Improvements
Removed “x1” from showing up inappropriately
MAJOR: Changes to Clock UI
There is now an indicator to tell you what the current day is
All ‘slices’ but the current time of a day are dimmed out
The clock now properly reflects reality
The Compendium
A new menu option allows you to call up the vitally important Compendium
Click tabs to navigate between sections
Other
MAJOR: Concept of “Authorities”
An “authority” is a technical controller that creates or monitors a variety of game factors, like player location and the creation of ‘headless’ objects
MAJOR: Concept of Draw Order
All objects now have a draw order for proper “layering”
Eg., standing in front of a tree displays you in front of it. Going behind the trees displays the tree on top of you.
All layers and other draw calls have been optimized for performance
Revamped shadow system
Shadows are now “dynamically generated” and are overall a lot better to look at (?)
The state of our WARP CORP continues to hold steady at ~pretty good~
The Extinction-Level-Event (ELE)is holding steady at ~44 weeks away. Neat!
Today’s a big week, y’all – it’s a new release! Of my game! Village Monsters!
It’ll be my first one in 2 months and only my 3rd overall, and unlike those other releases I’m actually not full of shame and regret. Well, to be fair, I am still filled with those things, but it’s for other reasons.
Anyway, things are going pretty pretty good again. I’m back on a good working schedule and have made a ton of progress. Taxes are done and about to be filed…things are looking up for the WARP CORP
SPRINT GOALS
Really just one main goal this week – release a dang game demo.
Beyond that, I’ve got a big ol’ backlog of analysis-related tasks that I’ve kept putting off.
It was a good week this week. I got a lot of work done on some things I had been meaning to since, uh, forever.
I have a theory about game development – and probably all development, actually. You know the warts in your code; not just the outward facing bugs, but also the terrible workarounds, the shameful lack of documentation, the abominable exploitation of innocent data structures.
But you need to ignore most of them if you want to stay sane…especially if you’re a solo dev with limited time (and a lack of skill in my case)
So you ignore them, and ignore them, and ignore them…until finally they drive you absolutely nuts, you reach a breaking point, and you’re forced to actually fix them.
Soon enough you realize that the above works for features, too. Before too long, all of your prioritization is based on what annoys you the most.
and you know what? The system really works. I fixed all my annoyances this week.
