Lordsworn: The First Playable Prototype Rises!
Greetings, fellow developers and dark architects of chaos!
Over the past few weeks, Lordsworn has evolved from a collection of interlocking systems into something far more sinister—a playable prototype. Yes, you can now venture forth, recruit minions, corrupt the world, and even (gasp) click on things! Of course, calling it an "alpha" would be a stretch—it's rough, it’s barebones, and it's one bug away from collapsing into a void of eldritch spaghetti code. But it exists! And that’s a milestone worth celebrating.
The Loop is ALIVE!
For the first time, the full gameplay cycle is functional (if still wobbly, like a freshly raised skeleton tripping over its own femurs). You can now:
✅ Go on a venture—Send minions to do your evil bidding.
✅ Return from said venture—Assuming they survived.
✅ See your spoils—Loot arrives in the throne room.
✅ Recruit new minions—Because goblins are disposable, let’s be honest.
✅ Sleep to end the day—A villain needs rest too.
✅ Corrupt hexes—The world must fall under your dominion.
It’s not pretty. It’s not polished. But the bones of the game are here, and that’s a massive step toward making Lordsworn a reality.
Lessons Learned (a.k.a. What Broke and How I Fixed It)
Developing a solo project teaches you things—often the hard way. Here are some key takeaways from this cycle:
🛠 State Management: Centralize or Suffer
Previously, UI elements behaved like amnesiac goblins, each with their own spaghetti-coded disaster waiting to unfold. Now, everything flows through a single state management script, making interactions far more stable.
🛠 Data Structures Matter More Than I Thought
Tracking minions, loot, combat states, and world corruption became a tangled mess until I broke it into three layers:
- Static Templates (base unit/item stats).
- Mutable Lists (active units, battles, loot).
- Runtime Objects (actual in-game entities).
This separation has been a game-changer for scalability.
🛠 UI: Stop Reinventing the Wheel
Every button used to have its own handcrafted logic (madness!). Now, buttons dynamically execute scripts, shaving off an embarrassing amount of development time.
When is a Prototype "Playable"?
This has been the biggest question lingering in my mind. At what point does a game stop being a half-baked collection of ideas and start becoming something others can interact with? I don’t have a perfect answer, but my takeaway is this: momentum matters more than perfection. If the core loop exists—even in a crude form—it’s time to get it in front of people and iterate.
For other devs out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
💭 When do you start sharing playable builds?
💭 How do you balance scope creep vs. depth?
💭 Any favorite tricks for keeping a solo project on track?
What’s Next for Lordsworn?
Now that the core loop is basically functional, there is so much to do
i don't even know if there is a fun game here, but now the loop is sputtering to life i have a feeling there might be
👹 Expanding minions and enemies—Currently, there aren’t enough to make strategy meaningful.
🎨 Visual & UI refinements—Finding the right vibe is an ongoing challenge.
For those who’ve been following this journey—thank you! Lordsworn is still in its infancy, but it’s becoming more real every week. If villainous strategy games are your thing, come say hi and let’s plot world domination together.
Until next time—keep corrupting.