I got a bit distracted on this project, got a 3d printer, my watch broke so I'm investigating making a smartwatch, lots of stuff.
I planned to write a whole blurb about how I'd be able to finish this all without crunching, wrote a lot of it, then restarted my browser before posting and lost it all. In that I said that even though I have a 3d printer , 3d printing takes time so I'd still have time for this! Then I spent all of yesterday and the day before doing nothing but work, and 3d printer stuff, so that's obviously not true and I need to dedicate time more to this instead of the printer if I want to actually complete this project.
So I'm going to try to go more of a fast and frequent on the devlogs, here's what I implemented I think the same day or the day after I wrote that last one:
- Doors, opening/removing doors when interacted with
- floor traversal
- Text log in the UI to tell you what happened
And here's what I have left for a bare minimum to be satisfied with shipping something at the end of the month:
- Basic combat
- at least one enemy to have combat with
- At least one equipable item to combat the enemy with
- At least one class to fight as, with the stat generation more finalized than it is now
- A win condition
- An inventory system
- A leveling system
- At least one usable item to recover health
- Windows and Linux builds working with my Jenkins build server
I think with that stripped down set of tasks, it should be possible to ship that as an MVP/very very early access type thing at the end of November.
Here's what I had planned for initial release that is not in that MVP list:
- Saving/loading games
- Additional items
- Additional classes
- help/info menu
These would be stretch items that would likely not make it into the initial MVP and would happen afterwards. Yes I know Saving/Loading is in the stretch items list, but for a roguelike with permadeath, I'm not sure it makes sense to expend effort on being able to save your game when the combat hasn't even been put in yet.
Of course I will also need to still do all the marketing items I have planned, so I think I'll need a couple hours each day, or maybe a few hours on each weekend day in order to get stuff done in time, I'm hoping to have the combat and win condition in sooner rather than later, so I can get some solid test time to know that it is actually winnable.
Likely the shipping price at the end of november will be significantly lower than the planned full release price, which I think is perfectly reasonable given how much would be cut from the initial release, later updates would be planned to add more content, I'll figure out the plan/schedule for later updates later on.