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[JobLeonard]

Quoted because of pagination:

@JobLeonard: Thanks! I'll check it out!

Alright, took me a bit longer than expected to post this, sorry, working hard on the next trailer/ some sort of crowdfunding plan.

So a bit on the design changes:

The game is still an action-rpg type with old school zelda combat, but as I mentioned the gameplay wasn't doing it for the publishers I was sending it to. Doing this on my own has really made me aware of what I'm good at and what I suck at. I seem to have something with the art and writing, those are my favorite parts to do, but I think the issue was the gameplay BETWEEN those story/cool art moments wasn't engaging.

So I changed up each world a bit to have, what I'm calling, AREAS. These are more linear parts of the world where I have more control over the tightness of enemy/environment/encounter design. Each Area has a specific number of trash to clean, usually a unique mechanic that it explores, and it's own short little story that plays out as you go through it.

For example:

Stuart's Toxic Trail is an Area in the first world that features the game's first main boss, Stuart.





The area is all about the game's dash mechanic, which allows you to dash forward quickly and gives you a small window of invincibility. So it starts off with simple turrets to dodge, then throws a new Fat Rat enemy at you that is weak and slow, but dashes at you quickly, forcing the player to dodge if they don't want to take damage, then continues to expand on these ideas and twist them.





All the while, some of the rooms continue the story of the Area, in this case introducing Stuart and a trio of recurring enemy characters, leading up to a boss fight at the end of the area.



These are similar, I suppose as a dungeon in these kinds of games. But they are shorter and more frequent. I like to think of them more like a level in modern mario games.


Importantly, I think this game will ALWAYS be about the story and the art. I believe those areas are its best chance to be something special, and those are the things that make me jump out of bed at 3 in the morning to write a new character, or draw a new design or something. But I work so hard on all the other parts that I would hate for one area of the game to come across as lazy or not thought out!



FINALLY(this is a long post, sorry) I've been thinking of changing my twitter and general social media presence from myself over to a bunch of rat characters from the game. There's this meta narrative throughout the game that it was created by a team of insecure rats, who call themselves Rat Team 28. I get social anxiety, as I'm sure many game developers do(how else are you supposed to sit inside and work on a project for this long?!?) and really can't stand social media "marketing" but I think it might be more entertaining for everyone if it wasn't me desperately trying to get my game the attention I think it deserves. I'm also better at selling my characters than I am at selling myself.



Just thought I'd put that idea out there, not sure if it's a bad idea.

So I changed up each world a bit to have, what I'm calling, AREAS. These are more linear parts of the world where I have more control over the tightness of enemy/environment/encounter design. Each Area has a specific number of trash to clean, usually a unique mechanic that it explores, and it's own short little story that plays out as you go through it.

Sounds a bit like you're making this into short-but-memorable mini-games that fit in the narrative. Could work really well: it can make sure the gameplay is tight and respects the player's time by not overstaying its welcome between the story-moments that are likely what hooks the players. So perhaps a bit more Mario & Luigi than Zelda, right?

The area is all about the game's dash mechanic, which allows you to dash forward quickly and gives you a small window of invincibility. So it starts off with simple turrets to dodge, then throws a new Fat Rat enemy at you that is weak and slow, but dashes at you quickly, forcing the player to dodge if they don't want to take damage, then continues to expand on these ideas and twist them.

Few things to keep in mind:

- don't make players redo the whole section if they fail at the last one. Have intermediate save points
- maybe also start giving hints if they keep failing

I doubt you're intending for this game to really meant be "hard-core", and suspect it has the most likely chance of finding its audience if design it to be accessible to the semi-casual to casual crowd.

FINALLY(this is a long post, sorry)

Yes, how dare you give us lots of juicy info that we love to give feedback on :p

I've been thinking of changing my twitter and general social media presence from myself over to a bunch of rat characters from the game. There's this meta narrative throughout the game that it was created by a team of insecure rats, who call themselves Rat Team 28. I get social anxiety, as I'm sure many game developers do(how else are you supposed to sit inside and work on a project for this long?!?) and really can't stand social media "marketing" but I think it might be more entertaining for everyone if it wasn't me desperately trying to get my game the attention I think it deserves. I'm also better at selling my characters than I am at selling myself.

Interesting idea! So would you kind of turn it into a performance piece between the rats?

Reminds me a bit (in a weird way) of the commentary tracks on DVDs where actors comment on the movie but stay in character. Robert Downey Jr. stayed in-character as Kirk Lazarus for Tropic Thunder. The commentary track for This Is Spinal Tap is practically another with the whole band staying in character and adding even more improv comedy.

[anotherDev]

Yeah, for sure. Realized early on that it would need some sort of checkpoint system throughout the level, so did add that.

And yeah, I don't really want the bulk of the game play to get in the way of progression and story and such. Although I do have more challenging areas for people who want them. I guess the issue is there seems to be a fine line between "casual" and "boring" that has been hard for me to fix for whatever reason. But I do feel good about this now, I have also added more stuff to collect in the world, trying to take away emphasis on combat, which I think has helped a lot.

[JobLeonard]

Although I do have more challenging areas for people who want them.

One thing you can do is to keep the challenge modes optional, and not necessary to unlock the full story or better gear (why give win-more gear to people who want a challenge?)

[anotherDev]

Hey guys,

Don't have anything new to show rn, wanted to give a little update on how things are going, though.

I'm taking a break this month(for the first time since I started 3 years ago!) to try to figure out the direction to go with the gameplay, because I feel really stuck with it. I've been giving this my all to make it the best I can, but in doing so have neglected other parts of my life. All to have the game play still not hold up. So I need to rethink my strategy before I dive back into things, because I cannot continue with my current approach, I was not prepared for how much self-contempt my brain would have with this. I guess that's what happens when something requires basically every second of your life. There starts to be a 1-to-1 connection between how the game is going and how you feel about yourself, which is obviously dangerous!

Just to be clear, DEFINITELY NOT dropping this project/giving up. I think I'm just biting off more than I can chew for too long. I think the best solo creators work around their limits, not brute force their way through them, so I need to come up with a plan that fixes the gameplay without requiring several more months of living a uni-dimensional life.


Come June, I will most likely just focus on getting a stable build together for public critique, and maybe we can figure out the gameplay together. I got the art and the writing covered, but can use some help there for sure .


I'll leave it at that for now, thanks for the continued support!

[JobLeonard]

Hey, this might sound crazy but: I think this is great news! You're learning to be kind to yourself, and you totally deserve that self-love! We all want you to succeed here, but that first and foremost means your well-being!

And you're completely right: you shouldn't have your sense of self-worth tied to this project, it's not healthy.

Get out of here, get some.. well, whatever it is that you have been neglecting for yourself (I can't decide that for you). We'll be here when you get back, as supportive and happy to see whatever you have to share with us next as we always are

[nathy after dark]

So I saw Toy Story 4 and there's a character that feels straight out of your game:



("Forky" Voiced by Tony Hale, made of trash and craft supplies, runs to jump in a trash can at every opportunity. What a mood!)

[anotherDev]

@nathy after dark: haha! Perfect! I still have to check it out!


Hello! So it's been a hot minute since I posted here again. Was hoping the previous haitus would be my last but whatever.

So unfortunately spent the last few months pulling my hair out trying to get the gameplay to be fun to no avail. But recently, I've been taking a lot of time, more time than i've taken since i started this project 4 years ago, to reflect on my current direction on this project/my life.

I've come to realize my passion is sculpture, animation and story telling, not designing games. This, as you might imagine, made it quite a lot of work to try to be excited about designing a complex action adventure game.

So I'm thinking, moving forward, I'm designing this game with a story and art first approach. I'm thinking this means keeping a lot of things as they are, but I think I'm best off changing the combat to a turn based rpg. I'll be able to salvage a lot of my old code and work(and obviously still have all the art), but this is a pretty big change to the game. I just don't see any other way of going forward with this game. It just isn't feasible to finish when it's such a slog for me to go through as it is now.

This will allow me to focus on my writing, the world's characters and story, which has always been the parts that everyone who has played it agrees is where the game really shines.


Also, I've been working on other, smaller scale projects that have helped me a lot. (I have a weekly webcomic you can check out here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/almost-somebody/list?title_no=297645 ) I'd imagine a lot of game developers like us can get sorta lost in their heads with projects that can be as complex and time-consuming as games often are, so, if you haven't done so already, I'd really recommend having small creative projects to put out there along the way. Maybe this is obvious to most, but it took me this long to learn.




Finally, I hope to post here again every week to keep you guys up to date on things. Expect an update every Friday.

Thanks for all those who've stuck with me through this arduous and enlightening process.

It's constantly inspiring to know there's others out there fighting through the crazy process of making a game they believe in.

[ComradeCupcake]

Glad to see you updating, even if it's just a brief sign of life check-in Figuring out what it is you actually enjoy doing is rough. Hit way off the mark on that myself before finding the right target. At least from the trailer, definitely agree that your sculptures and writing are the most intriguing parts of TGIT so far.

As for combat, are you dead set on having a combat system? May be too much of a shakeup to suggest going without it, especially since I don't know all your plans. Played A Short Hike a couple months back and the really open but casual adventure game quality of it reminded me of the kind of game TGIG's personality might thrive in.

Good luck on the webcomic as well. Hope it lets you stretch those creative muscles with less pressure!

[anotherDev]

Hm, yeah, definitely open to something without combat... that Short Hike game looks amazing. Maybe I'll have to think things through more haha, thanks!

[JobLeonard]

I'm with ComradeCupcake. It sounds like you drew the right conclusion near the end too.

I think it's fine to have a game that emphasizes the story and aesthetic experience over elaborate deep gameplay. Look at the games of Amanita Design: they are really, really simple adventure games from a gameplay standpoint but everyone loves them for their charm.

Don't feel forced to make a game as you may feel like it is "supposed to be", make the game that fits the story you wish to tell! It's your creative endeavor after all!

[Alce]

Another shout out to Amanita Design. No need to force a RPG system into your game for it to have a gameplay, simply having a world you can explore and interact with is enough to make a fascinating game. Looking forward to whatever you do!

[anotherDev]

Hey Guys!

I put a lot of thought into it, and I do think I'm going to go with the combat/rpg direction. I DO like combat, I just think I was doing it the wrong way trying to make it an action rpg. I appreciate all your feedback.

Here's an example of what I'm thinking/have been working on, specifically:

I'm planning on a fairly simple real-time battle system with a focus on different weapons/items instead of all these special moves and stuff. You collect a variety of different weapons throughout the game that have different stats and can equip them to various part members(some weapons can only be used by certain characters). I always loved item based progression/collecting things so I like the idea. Each character will have a strength attribute that allows them to 'carry' a certain number of weapons. For balance, better weapons might have more 'weight'


Characters are able to level up in a more traditional sense as well by killing enemies. When a character levels up, they can choose to increase either their health, speed, or strength, similar to the Paper Mario systems of leveling up.


(Early Battle System. Wait for character's turn, select which weapon to attack with, choose enemy to attack)

Luckily, a lot of these systems were, to some extent, sorta set up already, so progress has been going really fast, which is great. Obviously working on this for 3 years has made me much better at coding as well, so these new systems are much less prone to future bugs and stuff, which is nice!


(Early Weapon Equip Screen)

I know this doesn't sound like the most exciting combat system, but I want to keep it simple and even with this basic base I have lots of ideas for exciting enemy types. Again, I think for most(including me) if this game is gonna be special i think it's gonna end up being through the art and writing, but I feel good about this new approach. I think it won't get me bogged down in areas of game development where I don't particularly excel and is still something I'm excited to make and play!

[JobLeonard]

Yay! An update! :D

Paper Mario simplicity seems completely appropriate for the kind of game you're going for - engaging enough to keep you in the game but not the main focus.

Also, great to read that progress has been fast!

[1000h]

Love your art style and all the work you've put into the world and figures.
Something I especially like is how the dialogue portraits come to life.  I normally hate cutout dialogue portraits, but these are great in this style.
I hope you contact the Kingdom of the Dump team and make friends.

I see in recent posts you're trying to do a turn based thing instead of action real time.
Controlling the movement of a claymation character in real time seems very fun.
In comparison to the action style gameplay gif, the turn based gif has all the motion, flow, velocity ripped from it and looks significantly boring in comparison.

This leads to the thought of, sure, a guy collecting trash might have to fight rats and a few trash monsters, but other than that, it seems like he wouldn't really need to battle anything.

But the one thing, the really one important very important thing,
the thing I really wanted to say was that


...you have a graphic of a wing-back chair but its labeled "Large Sofa" so I submit that you correct the label!

[anotherDev]

@1000h

Thanks! Yeah, totally agree about it looking much less fluid, this is still relatively early, they don't do any animations or anything yet so it looks pretty garbage. But honestly, I'm thinking that this new system will actually lead to much better animation than before in the long run, I don't have to account for as many animation states as before, and I have better control now over when they play with this new system. I appreciate the feedback, it's certainly a bit scary changing it up, but I don't think it was possible for me to continue the other way? I'd say for now it's pretty great if the biggest concerns are just the way it looks and it not making sense thematically, because if those are the two areas I'm most confident I can make really great in the future. I wouldn't worry too much yet.

(Also, sofa thing is fixed lol, don't know why I never noticed that)

[JobLeonard]

Any project requires trade-offs and figuring out what options lie within the capabilities of the developer. I'm sure you're on a good path, like you say 

(I suggest to fix the label with "this is not a sofa" )

[anotherDev]

Hello Everyone!

This week, I worked on consumable items and the level up system.

Consumable Items are one-time use items that the player can use on the heroes. Nothing new really, pretty typical of RPG games. I don't plan on doing anything too crazy with these, just basic healing/attack items. Definitely need them in there for healing and stuff though.


(Basic Consumable use)


Like I said, the level up system is pretty simple. Every time a hero levels up, the player can choose one of three different options:

Health

Speed- How fast the move cooldown is for the hero

Strength - weapons require a strength to carry. The higher the hero's strength, the more weapons they can carry

I think this is a simple and effective way to allow the player to develop each character how they want.



(Early Level Up Menu, All placeholder images)

Finally, I've been working on full-motion stop animation cutscenes for boss intros and such, and this week I finally started to get things to look nice. They'll be fairly short because it's only me and stop motion takes forever(most less than 30 seconds), but there'll be a decent amount of them, so that'll be cool!




Next week, I plan on doing the battle animation states to get the battles looking good again, so that should be nice.

Still feeling good about the new direction of the game, although there is that thought in the back of my mind worrying if I made a mistake with switching it up, would really love to avoid running in circles. That's my biggest fear, honestly. The biggest mistake I've made with this game's development is changing my mind and redoing a lot of the work I previously did. Not sure how much of that is natural with game dev or how much of it was amateur mistakes, but I feel good that this new direction feels more based on logical strengths I(and most others) have seen in the game, rather than what I think is cool at the time.

It's gonna require a lot of work in December to do this, but I'd love to have something tangible to play in January for feedback/ try my hand at publishers again. I hope the new battle system will finally be enough to get a publisher to sign on, most publishers I sent it to seemed very interested but said the combat wasn't quite there, so fingers crossed. At the very least, hopefully I can get enough peeps to try it out and get feedback and get out of my head a little haha.

Thanks!

 

[JobLeonard]

That making-of shot is sooooo nice! I love behind-the-scenes footage of stopmotion animation

[anotherDev]

@ JobLeonard: Yeah, i think so too! I've been recording more of my sculpting/animating process with the intention of making some making of videos in the future, although idk when I'll get the time to do it xD


Hello! This week, I started putting together the town for the demo, which has been a lot of fun. The world itself is beach-themed, but each world in the game has you starting off in a small town area with shops/ npcs and such.



This is Ice Cream town, full of walking, talking ice cream people. Due to warming temperatures produced by the abundance of trash, the lifespan of each of the ice cream folk is a mere 3-in game days. This causes all the residents of Ice cream town to suffer from crippling anxiety and a general sense of meaninglessness. They all go around having panic attacks and questioning why they were even born just to die 3 days later. This also means that every 3 in-game days the town is populated with a new set of ice cream characters, each with their own unique look and dialog, but all equally full of existential dread. Not sure how angsty this sounds, but all of this is with a comical undertone. Next week I'll show you some conversations to give you a clearer idea!



Perhaps our garbageman hero can find to local source of the pollution and put a stop to it, allowing the resident ice cream folk to live long, healthy lives once again.

I like this world a lot, I think it combines the game's day mechanics with the general dark humor really well, and so far it's been turning out great!

General progress has been going alright as far as getting a demo out in January. I've been in the process of hunting for a new software dev job(what i do to pay the bills) and trying to put the game's site back together to maybe start posting weekly dev diaries, so there's definitely a lot still to do but things are starting to shape up.

[JobLeonard]

This is Ice Cream town, full of walking, talking ice cream people. Due to warming temperatures produced by the abundance of trash, the lifespan of each of the ice cream folk is a mere 3-in game days. This causes all the residents of Ice cream town to suffer from crippling anxiety and a general sense of meaninglessness. They all go around having panic attacks and questioning why they were even born just to die 3 days later. This also means that every 3 in-game days the town is populated with a new set of ice cream characters, each with their own unique look and dialog, but all equally full of existential dread. Not sure how angsty this sounds, but all of this is with a comical undertone. Next week I'll show you some conversations to give you a clearer idea!

It's hilarious because it's angsty