The simple game project (No for real, though.)

I really don't have a solid project yet, I've been writing down themes and systems that I think I could do quickly and keeping them organized. I am kinda leaning toward dungeon crawler as I planned to add a dungeon crawler system to Gerucrash and it would be nice to have the whole thing built when it comes time to add it.

There are other things I would like to try out, like a farming game or an automation game or some kind of management sim. The idea is to make something I can release in a month. Each month a new project until something catches on. Either I will have built a big portfolio, a game that people like or a library of code and resources to pull from going forward meaning each month the games I make could be more and more complex if I wanted since the systems would already be there and I could just plop 'em into a new project.

I already know the September project but everything from here to there is blank to me and the first project will have more like a month and a half, I guess this is good as it will give me some time to set up schedules and systems to help me keep track of things and keep from over-scoping.

I've never made a procedural generated map before, so a dungeon crawler offers me that. I could hand-make the maps but I am giving myself a month so that's probably not ideal. I will also be using some of my rather large library of licensed assets to help me avoid having to draw a bunch of tiles and stuff. I feel like this map generator will be important in coming months so I will take my time and document it.

I guess that means I settled on the dungeon crawler, right? What would I need for that? Let's see...

• Dungeon Generation (Wave Function Collapse?)
• Combat (Turn Based; Dragon Quest or Rogue/Nethack/Moria style?)
• Character Growth (Gain skill by doing things (Ultima, Morrowind), gain exp from killing enemies, levels give stat points to distribute?)
• Enemy Encounters (An enemy sprite on the map that you can engage or avoid, no random encounters.)
• Healing Skills, Items, Fountains or some way of recovering in general.
• Inventory, click item to use or equip. Limited space.

Extra Stuff (If I have time.)

• Taming System, tame monsters to be allies.
• Tricks and Traps in the map generator.
• Stealth system to allow the player to sneak past enemies via cone of vision or something?
• Hunger and Supplies system.

This is quickly getting out of hand, I need to keep it simple. Maybe I can get all them systems in within a month, but I need to be prepared to sacrifice some. Perhaps the taming and traps can be added last, that way at least I finish a simple dungeon crawler and can use the system later.

A lot of the systems involved are things I will need for future projects, the dungeon generator and inventory of course. Possibly the combat system if I decide to build a basic turn-based combat system in the style of Dragon Quest or the Mother series.

I've built some of these systems before for other projects so I have some experience in their design and execution but I will not make any assumptions that I can just bang the things out like nothing. A month is not a long time and while I may not have to do a lot of animation and drawing for this I can't overestimate my programming skills. Even the simplest games require a lot of work.

I guess I will put the systems up on the whiteboard and get started with gathering some of my assets to a folder for today. Tomorrow I have an appointment so I don't expect to get much done, then I can get to building a dungeon generator on Thursday. I have no idea how long that will take, I imagine a little while though.

I have whiteboarded the systems in order of importance and will ship whatever I have at the end of Feb. Hopefully my house doesn't explode or sink into the earth or anything and everyone gets and stays healthy so I can dedicate enough time to hopefully making something people will enjoy and I can build on.

Before I get to the asset wrangling it's lunch time, though.

Wont be much to write about so I will report back tomorrow.