Salvaged posts on Shoplifting Godot

 Originally posted at spakegames.com. Much of the content is mixed with details on another game.

 

 8/16/20: 

After my last blog post, it hit me: the year is half over, and I was still adding new features to my main project (still working on a new name for it). So, I re-examined my project against the goals I set for it:

• Make something simple.
• Make something quickly.
• Make everything except the game engine and audio myself.
• Make a complete game.
• Release it before the end of the year 2020.

I've removed the goal of necessarily charging money for the game once it's finished. The platform I'm going to release on, Itch.io, has an optional payment option that I'll probably use instead. Still, I'm not expecting to make much (if any) money.

The reasoning behind this is straightforward: I want a 30 second timer in my game, and I don't believe I'll have time to add unlocks or other incentives for repeated play.

I've wanted a timer in my game ever since I decided on the endgoal: Get to the end before your lover dies. However, for most of development, I couldn't decide on what the timer length should be. 1 minute? 5?

Until recently, I planned for up to 5 bosses to be in my game. Additionally, I'm planning on there only ever being 5 levels total: a starting area, 3 randomly selected levels from a larger pool of pre-constructed options, and a 5th final area with a bossfight. Within this structure, a 1 minute timer that stopped when you reached the final boss seemed most appropriate.

It was the 5 planned bosses, with the potential complexity they would add, which caused me to want at least 1 minute for players to experiment. However, it's on these 5 bosses that most of my time was being spent. And, only 1 was finished. So, I decided to cut every boss except for the one that was finished.

My pool of monsters and traps to learn is small, and there is no barrier in levels to keep players from rushing through everything to get to the end. Given this, with the removal of all but 1 boss I decided I wanted to focus the player on speed over doing everything. This is a cheap way to try and force interesting choices, and it's usually not a good design decision when made from desperation or a need to cut content.

I still plan to stop the in-game timer when the player gets to the end. So, I need a timer that is long enough for the player to get through 4 levels, but just short enough to force the player to move quickly. If 1 minute was necessitated by random, complex (comparatively), and unskippable boss fights, it seems reasonable to me to find the new time by cutting 1 minute in half. 30 seconds it is.

With the timer decided and all but 1 boss cut, I realized I'd implemented essentially everything my game will require. So, I now consider the game to be out of Alpha and into early Beta. My next steps are 5:

• Create new, 1 color, simplified sprites and animations for every object in the game.
• Create multiple tilesets.
• Find basic sound assets.
• Compile art, sound, and game assets into a basic playable version to beg people to try.
• Create a side project to learn how the Godot UI layer works.

Wait, wait, what was that last one?

It's an unfortunate truth that I know very little about implementing UI (menus) in Godot. This is a big problem, as I'd like to present the player with sound and input settings at the very least. So, I've started a new project called Shoplifting Godot.

This new project is not an original design, thankfully. I'll be attempting to recreate a game from 1979 called "Shoplifting Boy" in Godot, and I've selected this game for 2 reasons: It's one of the simplest games ever made (though it was advanced for the time, I'm sure), and I've never created a decent design for a stealth game. There's plenty you can learn just from seeing Shoplifting Boy in action, but I'm curious if there's more I can learn through the remaking process.

I learned about Shoplifting Boy completely by accident thanks to YouTube recommendations (cut video):

My next post (9/6) is on track to be part 1 of an overview of Shoplifting Godot, and should be the release date. Assuming nothing pops up to impede my progress, of course.

 

9/6/20:

Last week, I released a new game, Shoplifting Godot:

https://dgalga.itch.io/shoplifting-godot

I always intended Shoplifting Godot to be a side project for figuring out the UI, sound, and other basics of the Godot game engine. I never intended for it to have a future, and I was expecting to drop another game right after it. I had the whole of the last week off, and I knew it would be more than enough time to finish and release the game I've spent more than a year figuring out, and for this other game to quickly overshadow Shoplifting Godot.

I encountered a few surprises with this plan. First, I was surprised at my own dismay when no-one provided feedback for Shoplifting Godot on release day. It's weird when people doing exactly what you want them to is upsetting.

Second, I was surprised at the reaction of my roommate to Shoplifting Godot. I hadn't shown the game to anyone before release, and he was the nearest person I could grab to get immediate feedback. As soon as he "got it" (it took him a few minutes of playing, as Shoplifting Godot in its current state is very unfriendly), he immediately declared that the game was both fun and the best thing I've made so far. He even when a step further, and began insisting I should drop everything else I was doing and develop Shoplifting Godot into a complete title.

I was not prepared for this response. I spent the next hour comparing Shoplifting Godot and the project I've spent more than a year on, Project Splatter, and by the end I had to admit my roommate was on to something.

Shoplifting Godot, despite its roughness, is immediately fun in a way Project Splatter was not. This makes sense, as Shoplifting Godot is an extension of the design for the old game Shoplifting Boy. A game that, despite its age, was still solid enough for a number of people to remember it and help to declare it the first true stealth title.

The most reasonable way forward would be for me to drop Project Splatter and pivot entirely to a commercial version of Shoplifting Godot, but I'm not going to do that. Project Splatter was essentially finished; all of the pieces were done, and the project just needed assembling. I've decided to take the pieces of Project Splatter, change the design, and produce something new as a learning project.

My plan for the next 2 weeks is as follows:

1. Finish Project Splatter and release it as an experimental browser game with a real dumb name.
2. Make changes to Shoplifting Godot in accordance with the feedback I've already received, and then re-release it as a browser title to help with getting additional playtesting and feedback.
3. If I actually manage to finish 1 and 2 within 2 weeks, I'm going to start trying to get as many people as I can to play both. If I can discern a preference from players, I will move forward with making the preferred game into a full title.

Point 1 is going to be the hardest part for me. The biggest struggle for me remains implementing a new design, even if everything feels planned out in my head. It's a confidence issue I'm working on, and I believe returning to my job next week will help provide focus.

My next post will be 9/20. Until then.

 

9/20/20:

I've done it. In two weeks, I've taken a project that failed all of my initial goals (including a 6 month development plan) and turned it into something anyone can play in a browser:

https://dgalga.itch.io/punch-in-the-dark

The result is still not as much fun as I'd like. The way the light cone immediately changes when you move instead of smoothly rotating, the still-troublesome light cone width, and persistent animation issues, are too distracting for me to fully the enjoy the game. However, I consider Punch in the Dark to be an experimental prototype, so I can live with these issues for the time being.

My original concept for "Project Splatter" was very different, and was intended to be far closer to the game Splatterhouse in execution. However, the result wasn't very interesting, and my recent experience on Shoplifting Godot showed me I could do better. So, I decided to try limiting the player's vision, which the Godot game engine makes very easy, and I liked the result enough to name it.

The next step for Punch in the Dark will be the same as Shoplifting Godot: I need to find a way to get people to give me feedback.

I'm learning that getting a few people to play your game isn't hard. Itch.io provides wonderful free analytics, so I know that, to date:

• 7 people have downloaded Shoplifting Godot.
• 1 person has played the browser version of Shoplifting Godot.
• 6 people have played Punch in the Dark.
• 0 people have left any comments.

In terms of comments on these games outside Itch.io, I've received exactly 2 for Shoplifting Godot. This is nice, and it helped me fix some initial issues with Shoplifting Godot, but it's not enough to get a sense of whether people are enjoying my games or not. Game design thrives when you have access to players/testers who can give you detailed answers, and I'm feeling the absence. I can't tell if the disinterest is from something I'm doing, from the lackluster art of my games, from the gameplay people see when they search for my games, or something else entirely. And, at the moment, I'm not really sure how to make up for it.

I notified people that Shoplifting Godot existed by posting on Twitter, the PlayMyGame Reddit group, and Facebook to notify my friends and family. For Punch in the Dark, I managed to release the game on Saturday and tied it into the #screenshotsaturday campaign. I also posted links to it in additional Reddit groups.

It's possible there might be other sites where I could post my game and get a greater response. For example, I've been hearing positive things about Game Jolt for awhile, and I plan to post both Shoplifting Godot and Punch in the Dark there to see what happens. It's also possible there could be other Reddit groups or social platforms I can try to get some attention.

As things stand, it's clear at least a few people have enjoyed Shoplifting Godot enough to say something. As a result, I plan to develop Shoplifting Godot further into a full game starting next year.

I'm going to take the rest of this year for personal development. What does this mean? Well, I've got goals to meet at my day job, Python things to do, there's something I'm calling Project Neotokyo that I need to do alot more research for, and there's the 3rd prototype I started not too long ago I'm calling Project Wrecking Crew. Hopefully, I'll have something new and significant to report before the year is over.

I'm quite pleased with my basic menus, so next time I'll break down how I've been making them. Until 10/4!