Hey gang! Been a while since I've participated in this jam, so I'm looking forward to making something this year, though I don't know what! It's probably gonna be some sort of RPG though since that's what I'm focusing on now. Either an Action RPG or some sort of turn-based one. We'll see what happens!

Blessings everyone, looking forward to what y'all make!

DAY 0

Okay, so all three verses are interesting. I'll try to implement at least 2 if not all 3 in some way. However, I may focus my design around only one verse so things are manageable. Psalm 27:1-2 looks to be a strong contender, especially because I can get a title out of it. Reading The Message version of the text, Vandal Hordes sounds like a great game title. However, I can imagine something with the other two verses too. A wise guy coming up to a fortified city, full of armed soldiers, and destroying their defenses? Did someone say awesome? A divine being sitting on a cloud, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand? OOF.

I'm going to use RPG Maker MZ in a twist of my usual path which is usually Unity. I want to focus more on design and art, so I won't worry terribly so about programming this time around. I'm aiming for a cool short story, cool characters, and an interesting world. I want to make at least one hour of game time, and I want to have some sort of interesting systems design and focus on one unique mechanic that doesn't come out of the box from RPG Maker.

Off to the races we go!

DAY 1

No time for development today. Was going to decide gameplay features, potential story, characters, details, etc, but I'll have to push that for tomorrow. I did look into the possibility of using the new RPG Maker Unite which is basically a RPG Maker framework in Unity, but at $99 its cost is outside my scope right now. So I'll be sticking with RPG Maker MZ.

DAY 9

So today I hope to really get into the nitty gritty of my game. I've drilled further down into my chosen verse and uncovered the real theme of my game. Now to start working and developing around that theme. 

Next step was figuring out some characters. Although I knew I wanted a basic assortment of fantasy characters like a warrior, knight, sage, and archer (plus 1 secret character yet to be unveiled), I wasn't sure where to go and whether I wanted to go all-in on fantasy or sci-fi or a mix of both. As I watched Peppa Pig with my son, I thought the art looked nice and simple, so started sketching some of the pieces. From there things started taking shape and I came up with a scene of a fair. I think I found the initial setting of my game!

Then this morning I started working on quickly roughing out some characters based on the classes I picked out above. Rather than figure out character details right now, I went with a bigger picture to figure out the general mood and personality from their pose. Now what I want to do is start homing in on who they are with more specific details and explore their personality a bit. I'll also do another draft of my initial story which you can read in the previous post.

Lastly, the game won't be called Vandal Hordes as I initially aimed for, since the game isn't about them, but about the main theme of my entry, having confidence in God.

DAY 11

I've began working on a rough concept to help set the mood and atmosphere of the game, and to help the audio composer begin thinking and ideating some tracks for the game. Just rough lineart and a basic color wash to convey feeling and mood, looking to convey confidence through the composition and color combos.

I did a few sketches searching for that "look" and "pose and poise", and I think I've found it. From here I'll work on describing the forms a bit better and adding some detail. This piece may become the cover art for the game!

DAY 13

So I've been working on figuring out the characters before I set to doing their art in-game, so I've been sketching and conceptualizing, here's one of the first characters, thinking about naming her Mayfire. 

Gonna try to knock out the remaining three characters tonight and tomorrow expand a bit more the illustration above just enough that the composer can be inspired by it and start working on something. Beyond that, I'll start creating the art for use in-game.

Meanwhile, I've been brainstorming names for the game, but haven't fallen on one yet. I also need to start writing out some ideas for narrative and build it out in the game. 8 days left, I can do this!

DAY 16

Finally wrapped up the concepts for my characters. And I've thought about their names too! Character revealed above is Mayfire. The knight character is Vegeris (pronounced Vah-ger-is), the archer is Dina, and the sage is Xeux (pronounced just like Zeus). I had to simplify my art process because I literally don't have enough time to iterate, so I gotta work quicker.

Now I'm gonna clean up and improve a bit the illustration that will be used for the title screen, and then start working on getting those in-game sprites ready. I've also written an outline of how I want the game to progress and will be creating the dialogues and basic area maps in-game.

Hoping tomorrow to knock out a big portion of the game and then just polish the rest of the week till Friday.

DAY 19

Here's the map concept for Peace Valley, the place where the citizens of this area live, work, and play. As the vandal hordes approach, it is your job to get them to safety, to the stronghold in the mountains where they will be protected - where the light of their eyes will not be extinguished nor the hope in their heart snuffed out.

pretty detailed sketch in nd of itself wow. I'm excited to see more!

Here's a screenshot of how it looks in-game. First pass. If I have time I'll do another pass. There are a total of six areas so far: the town, the stronghold, the fairgrounds, and the three farmsteads. If I have time, which is dwindling, I'll add a few extra/secret areas.

Diggin it!

The four dev blogs are looking like such different games its going to be hard to do a good job evaluating a tier list and proper ranking! I imagine the variety is also there with the other 4 joined participants (if we see those entries as well)... Keep up the good work, can't wait to give it a play through!

LAST DAY

The final stretch folks! As happens sometimes, you do all you can do for your entry and wish you had more time to get all the little things in, or maybe even the big things you had to cut! My entry is going to lack that sense of progression with the story that I wanted to include, so I'm aiming to have a build where you can explore, look around, interact with the world and just have some fun if even a little.

I'm looking forward to doing a post-mortem at the end of the jam to review the things I did wrong and the things I did right and how I can have better success the next time around. Overall though, I had fun working on this and interacting with others and that's my major takeaway. Can't wait to submit my build and hopefully it gives you a small sense of what I was aiming for.

Happy Devving everyone!

POST-MORTEM

80% of the success of your project is determined by the system you have in place to work with. The other 20% is perseverance, grit, and determination.

It's been a while since I've been able to do a Speedgame Challenge, having missed out on them since 2021, when I did Hardmode only. I've enjoyed the challenges since 2014 when I did my first one developing Warrior, and Classic really provides a good amount of time to flesh things out. One of the problems I've always run into however is overscoping my projects.

There's been a handful of submissions throughout the years that I've been able to complete on time. And I've been getting better at it, making better choices and design decisions. My skill in scoping has been growing just as my development skills have been growing. However, I'm still fine-tuning some things, figuring things out, establishing a system that I can depend on and repeat time and again. Persevering in that system has been difficult though. I tend to be too all over the place when making a game.

With this game jam, I knew I wanted to do a RPG. But instead of trying to write a bunch of systems from scratch - which I've attempted at least twice in the past, once in 2015 with SEED, and another in 2019 with Project Starsoul, with varying results - I figured I'd roll with RPG Maker this time around to speed up a lot of the back-end of things and focus on the front-end - story, world, and characters. That was a good decision, except I blew my time doing a bunch of concept art and little actual game making. Not only that, but I didn't account for how much time I would realistically have.

I had planned for maybe having about 3-4 hours a day. But that wasn't realistic, it ended up being more like 1-2 hours most days, and then the odd day I'd get 4 hours or so. What I should have done at the beginning of the jam is sitting down and establishing a battle plan for the development cycle, which I'm notoriously bad at. Then timeblock different aspects of the cycle to establish how much time I realistically have, and work with that.

When I start a game jam, what usually happens is: 1) Brainstorm ideas based on the theme, 2) Open my engine of choice and start working.

Number one usually includes reference finding, research, and maybe looking up some kind of tutorial or walkthrough for something more difficult to accomplish. I also usually establish some kind of beginning of world building here, name ideas maybe, and potential characters. Then when I start working in my chosen engine, I either look up how to do something, or just get things done as I can - sometimes smooth sailing, sometimes trudging through. During the development process, I have my art tool of choice, either Aseprite or Photoshop, or Gimp back in the day, and I create my art assets. Sound effects are either made in BFXR or found online, likewise with music.

Sometimes I'd open Open Office, start a new document, and pool my ideas into some kind of crystalline document that has the game idea, goal, and scope. And even less times than that, I'd establish an asset list, and a timeline. I'm not the most organized. I lack the discipline. I blame not having worked for a game studio for a long period of time, or having a mentor to help iron out the bad habits. Only in recent years have I gotten better at organizing my ideas and workflow into something usable and robust. But still I fail at times.

One workflow I've adopted recently involves one developed by Christer Kaitila (@McFunkypants on Twitter). The process is:

- Brainstorm!

- Needs and Wants List, Review items using the guiding questions on a scale of 1-5

1. How excited am I about this?
2. How viable is this?
3. How fun does it sound to play?
   
4. How fun does it sound to code?

- Elevator Pitch/Back of Box blurb

- Sketch the game in action – Storyboard/Playboard (should be at least one page long)

- Prototype MVP (1st save point)

- Polish MVP (2nd save point) – Beyond this point you could reasonably ship

- Implement features one at a time (MVP each feature basically) (Each feature is a save point)

Christer uses this process not just for game jams, but also for games that he wants to ship in some form. I used this process somewhat this jam, but not entirely. But it has been my go-to for the recent games I've been doing. I won't go into detail on each part, but I'll link you to where you can go for the deets. Either way, I think it's rather self-explanatory for the most part. With that said, do yourself a favor and read his article, the man has lots of great ideas that are well explained in there! #1GAM: How to Succeed at Making One Game a Month | Envato Tuts+ (tutsplus.com)

What I like about this process is how it involves sketching the game in action. Games are visual (for the most part), so it makes sense that the design process should include visuals in some way. And I would add, also include audio. Play some music that makes you think of the game in action. Anything and everything you can use to better formulate the game idea, the better. In the past some of my game ideas would come rather quickly through an image or a sound or a music track. Other times I had to really think through what I wanted. Sometimes I could plan the design of the game rather quickly and efficiently, other times it took me a while to really hit my stride. I think honing in on what excites me about an idea, or doesn't excite me, should be an indicator of the path to pursue.

I also have a "toolkit" so to speak that I depend on. These are things that I usually go for in my games and care about, my design philosophy basically. And also includes the tools I work with. My development tools include Photoshop, Inkscape, Aseprite, Blender, Audacity, BFXR, Git, C#, C++,  GML, Unity, RPG Maker, and Game Maker Studio 2. For reference making, moodboards, vision boards, etc, I use PureRef. For time tracking I use Toggl. My design philosophy involves story, characters, and world at a macro level, and at a micro level involves aesthetics, mechanics, and systems. Having atmosphere and mood is important to me as well.

• Story - What is taking place here in this world, why do we care, and what are we going to do about it?
• Characters - Who am I and what can I do? Who am I up against? Who am I with?
• World - Where do I live? What can I see? Where can I go?
• Aesthetics - Look and feel
• Mechanics - Gameplay and ability, or what can the player do
• Systems - the foundation or rules
• Atmosphere - Sunny, rainy, cloudy, overcast, misty, foggy, etc. How are the lights, shadows, and colors interacting with the world, characters and story?
• Mood - the feeling, texture, ambience, tension, etc that the game gives off at a given moment.

Despite having a robust toolkit, I rarely access it during a jam. And I don't always establish it outright or in a focused way for my non-jam games. I usually piecemeal together different aspects important to me, but often have a disparate collection of things rather than a unified whole. By this I mean that my game doesn't have a proper shell usually.

If you were to think of a game in terms of an animal, like say, a crab, a lion, or a dinosaur, in your head you can envision that animal rather easily. But were you to draw that animal, or maybe even model it, how would you go about it? Do you make a rough silhouette first? And then fill in the shape with the proper forms, and then the proper details? Or do you define a part of the animal first, and then build out from there? Making a game is similar. 

Sometimes you can make quite a neat body, or a head, or a arm/paw/pincer with cool little details, but where's the rest of the animal? The whole of the game suffers because it's missing important components that it should have based on its genre. If the animal is the game, the genre is its features. 

If you were to have a rough silhouette first, you've got the basics of basics covered. Then you start working and detailing. But your foundation is there. So even if you've defined one part of the body to its maximum, the whole won't lack as much because you've got the rough shape in place. Compare that to missing the rough shape, and only having a super defined upper body with no legs or pelvis (or tail, or pincers, etc) to carry the rest. Or conversely, you've got the legs, but no torso and head to guide the body. Gruesome, I know. But making a game is just like that. You've got to define the essentials of the kind of game you want to make, and then define the bare minimum of those essentials. That's how you make a great game during a game jam. Or at least finish a game that's actually fun to play.

So, what could I have done better to get the game done on time and with enough content to carry the theme and fun through? Define a darn shell that's what! But wait, there's more! Let's put it down on a list so next time I don't get tripped up. I'm gonna make sure I don't make the same mistake again and actually do what I'm preaching here.

1. Define a shell.
2. Follow my workflow. It's established, use it. Fine-tune it, sure! But it's meant to make my life easier, so I shouldn't skip it.
   
3. Follow my pipeline. This one is trickier because it involves which tools to use and how and when to use them. I tend to be flexible on how I work, but I need to define a proper development pipeline. So this needs planning. A pain point needing a solution.
4. Be mindful of my pain points and establish a plan to solve them. These are the things that always trip you up. Write them down, and then figure out how to get past them. How to work with the theme? What genre should I go for? Etc.
5. Organize a timeline with the needs and wants list. Be flexible but also be ruthless on cutting out the fat. Trim the excess, keep the most important stuff. Simplify.

I think with these points, my scope would have been appropriate, and my focus laser sharp. Next time, I'll stick with this, and see if I can't come up with an awesome game for the jam!

Well, I think I've reached the end of my post-mortem, Much thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to the journey we're on and what the future holds. Adios!