Feb Dev Log

February Dev Log

Well hello everybody! What a month... It was extremely busy that's for sure. As I've explained in the last couple of Dev Log's I've been focusing my efforts on gardening and this month was no exception - however, a lot more happened too!



So in terms of straight game development, I've now added a potting area to the garden, a pond or gazebo and you can change the pathways that lead you around the cute little garden. It's been hard work but looking back I think you'll appreciate the fact you can customise the garden and make it feel like your own!

In the potting area, you can now grow smaller plants that will give you strawberries or blueberries etc! I stupidly decided that you can change the planters to suit the different styles of garden, but then also be able to grow many different little plants... This created the mammoth task of finding a way to have two events (basically items for those who don't use this engine) overlap... The way I did it they don't actually overlap but jeeze... Did I create myself a lot of hardcore problem solving to get this to work but eventually it was ok, and that's one of the best parts of game development and why I think so many people enjoy coding.

Now I know I'm actually coding stuff, but still, the problem solving nature at every freaking turn keeps my brain relatively active and when you finally crack how to get that problem solved it sure feels good!

Anyhow, I can now say that I've got the gardening in such a state that I only need to go back to add more and more different verieties of stuff at a later date.

I might have mentoned this before, but when I work on a new mechanic I just get it working (with a couple of options for instance) and then move on to the next one. I do this to keep myself sane and to get the wider experience progressing. Image if I finished all the decorating items and gardening; this would take me 2 months solid... And then what, I realise that growing potatos easily unbalances the game, and then gardening in general makes the game unbalanced... and then on and on, the game falls like a deck of cards whilst I've focused all my energy on a couple of things.

I think that's the trick with these open world games... finding balance.

So next we recorded and added a Dev Log to Youtube!! How cool is that! Never done that before!

I tried and tired to record whilst plaing, record myself over premade footage, ready from a script, ad-lib... everything! After a couple of hours of trying I called to my wife, grabbed the mic and we both chatted over some of the footage I'd caught in my earlier faliures. I think it worked out well and I'm hopefully gonna have some recorded either weekly or bi-weekly depending on our scheduels.

I'd love it if you could take a look and maybe Sub to our channel! Or maybe give us a comment to let us know what you think! I'm a youtuber now!! Haha! And with only 13 subs, but hey, you gotta start somewhere right!

I'm going to quickly go into Comicon 2020, I know this was March action but since it was at the begining and fresh in my mind I thought it would be worth talking about now.

As with all my other conventions (3rd time for The Isle of Bobbin!) I set up the table with my hand made decorations, whacked on our devlog with the sound off and waited for visitors. It's as simple as that. I didn't have any fancy competitions to win or talks to give this time so it was good just to spend time with people and share my game with them.

That's the very best bit; meeting people.

Some people I met are REALLY REALLY REALLY lovely. You know who you are. It's so nice to meet some enthusiastic people for the game and it both inspires and motivates me with each person who gives us feedback or takes time out of thier day to come and see the game. I'm truley honored to have met you and thank you for joining in on this journey! It's not over yet, but I know you'll be there for me/us and it's such a nice feeling.

I acutally got fan art from a lovely person - take a look! I almost died with happiness. Thank you! You knocked off something from my bucket list by sending this to me.

Next on my ever growing to-do list I've got to add more characters to the game and that means writting many more thousands of lines of dialogue. I'm moving on to the town area in the game, which is very exciting and so I should have some interesting updates soon. Wish me luck!

Love you all and speak soon!

Steven