May Dev Log

May Dev Log

Hello! Another month and another dev log... Well, last month I mentioned things have slowed down for me in terms of GameDev and this month I've decided to do something that will improve the game a great deal; but at the same time, I've literally opened pandora's box... 

So what on earth could that be? I've decided to improve the night-time graphics. Which means I have to re-colour (by hand) everything... 

So why would I do this? Take a look at the screenshots and you be the judge on that! 

So why was it so dark before? I planed my game pretty well, to be honest. Making an OpenWorld game I knew that I needed to plan everything in advance, things like seasons, weather, how the weather would impact when characters would be outside or stay in because it's raining? What they would say if it's raining? If it's a special holiday day what happens? If they like you what happens? EVERYTHING is interlinked and needs some kind of meticulous planning.

I mentioned in an earlier dev log that I'd added weekends and it didn't create too much re-work and I implemented it pretty easily. I added night-time to the game early on, some characters prefer to stay indoors, kids aren't going to the local school at night, shops are shut, all done and dusted and pre-planned to perfection... however, I then foolishly added a filter to make everything look dark... It made walking around at night impossible and pretty pointless. 

So for some reason, I knew that the more I developed the game, the deeper I was getting into and decided to just jump in and take this problem on. 

The other issue I was facing was that my maps looked nice with all the cute fabric art style but they were very static; I'd tried a few things to make clouds move but couldn't crack it and wanted stars at night but it wasn't working at all. One thing I've learnt (and I'm sure it's the same for coders out there); once you open something up, you may as well fix everything related to the problem whilst you're there and tinkering away. So, I'm please to say not only does the nighttime look a million times better, all of my maps have scrolling clouds, twinkling stars and plants that blow in the wind! It's really brought my maps to life and I'm very pleased. 

HOWEVER! It means I've had to re-map, recolour everything... Argh... what a pain... It's totally worth it but my goodness is it a lot of work. 

I'm thinking I've put at least two months worth of work on top of my workload but again, what is the point of making this game if it's not going to be what I want it to be? 

I get the whole notion of cutting your losses and not biting off more than you can chew; but at the same time, I haven't invested a million dollars into the game and have the pressure of a publisher asking for a completion date... I leave that to the professionals, this game is a passion project and made with love, not for gain. 

Let me know what you think! Hopefully, once you finally get to play it you'll not notice the difference anyway lol. But still, it's good to share the great moments of my work and also the not-so-great moments here too. 

I hope you're well and having a good time with whatever is your own personal passion, we need to have projects and things to do like this to keep us sane, especially right now...

Love 

Steven