Work Post
5:20am - Geez it was around 4:10 when I left the apartment, and it's already 5:20? I've been screwing around on reddit a bit more than usual before starting my Work Post. ^.^;;
Anywhizzle, I was talking with a couple friends this morning/last night about my struggles and they suggested that I focus on making a sort of animal crossing space station game like I wanted to, and add the frontier parts later if I still think I want to. I generally agreed with this.
So, I guess my next step is to make an Animal Crossing clone in Unity that works both on desktop and my phone. That'll be interesting. I forsee a lot of cubes and capsules in my near future. But first, I want to ask on Reddit why nobody makes Animal Crossing clones. Maybe there's a reason I'm just not seeing?
5:44am - It took a bit to write out and format but here's the reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5ts87w/why_arent_there_more_animal_crossing_clones/
It's hard to believe it took 20-25 minutes to come up with that, but I don't recall doing anything but that between now and my last entry so I guess it did. Weird.
Now it's time to BREATHE and think about making the game itself.
7:02am - Instead of thinking about making the game itself I spent more time dicking around on Reddit.
7:20am - Still dicking around on Reddit, though at least this time it was responding to responses to my reddit post I linked earlier/wrote an hour and a half ago.
Time flies. And I still have to BREATHE and think about making the game itself.
So, where should I start?
I guess I could do like I did before, make a box and make some NPCs in the box and work on their AIs gradually. I'll probably make them capsules rather than boxes this time. I'm not sure what to do about terrain. Should I make it bumpy? Animal Crossing didn't have bumpy terrain, it was multi-tiered but flat. Should mine be multi-tiered? There should definately be underground 'buildings' since the farmland goes 'on top' or should there be 'farmland' in this Space Habitat; maybe the plants are all grown outside in zero G farming pods by robots? Or in something like hydroponic plant factories? I mean, now that I think of it, why would you grow plants for eating in your habitation ring when you could build habitats? Bloody hell this is making a mess of my plans, again. BREATHE.
8:15am - More dicking around on Reddit. I actually managed to forget the problem that made me worry so much. But here it is written down above this... Geez.
So right, ah, back to Reddit to ask about this. That's a good idea. I'll ask on /r/scifi/
8:47am - Still crafting my Reddit post. Had to pause to note, a police officer is in the McDonalds. I saw him accepting a clear plastic bag with something inside, and then he went back behind the counter with two employees. Don't know what's going on, but it's a little unnerving.
8:53am - https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/5tsyem/im_trying_to_design_a_space_habitat_for_a_video/?ref=share&ref_source=link
There's that. For now I'll try not to worry too much about the setting and focus on the mechanics of the game. I'll make a sandbox and experiment with villager AI for now.
Hmm... Blargh... I just came upon another thing. Villager homes. It'll be important to their AI. But, in Animal Crossing, the houses are bigger on the inside. I don't know if I want to do that or what. So hard to decide on these things. I wish I had a stronger design concept for this game, so I would know what to do. :/
10:01am - I'm still not really working on my game, mostly just checking reddit and chatting on discord. Actually thinking of taking a break and playing video games for a bit, but I'm frustrated at that because I want to have more progress on the actual game, even if it's superficial.
10:07am - *opens Unity* *closes Unity* Nope, game time.
1:00pm - I didn't actually play video games for three hours. It was more like two and then more Reddit. Lots of people talking on the two threads I posted this morning.
Made me realize a bit that while my goal is "Build a better Animal Crossing" I'm not entirely sure how to do that. I know what I want to do is make the NPCs more alive and more interesting, but I'm not sure just what I'll do in order to make that happen.
More detailed daily schedules, probably, and meaningful dialogue. Just those two things would add a lot.
1:26pm - Alright, I opened my Unity project, and put in a plane and a capsule, then saved it and closed it. I realized that if I'm going to build complex interactions I'll need a complex scene to have my capsule people move around in and do interactions in.
I'm going to need at least two individuals for them to have interactions with eachother, homes and jobs for each of them to have a daily routine, and some environment for them to interact with when they're not working, eating, or sleeping.
I want to keep things simple but for the complex emergent behavior I'm designing I need a kind of complex world. How am I going to build that?
I'll need to build it in a way that the NPCs can recognize what's what.
I'm thinking the 'village' will be built around one of the elevator spokes leading to the center of the station. There'll be a river running through it, around the circumferance of the hab. The water will be the hardest part to deal with. I'm not sure the ideal way to do it. Probably in simple sections for the most part, so that it doesn't need very detailed collision mesh.
Alright I think that's enough for now. It's 1:45pm. I'm getting a sore butt from sitting at McDonalds all day. I'm going to pack up and head home.
Anywhizzle, I was talking with a couple friends this morning/last night about my struggles and they suggested that I focus on making a sort of animal crossing space station game like I wanted to, and add the frontier parts later if I still think I want to. I generally agreed with this.
So, I guess my next step is to make an Animal Crossing clone in Unity that works both on desktop and my phone. That'll be interesting. I forsee a lot of cubes and capsules in my near future. But first, I want to ask on Reddit why nobody makes Animal Crossing clones. Maybe there's a reason I'm just not seeing?
5:44am - It took a bit to write out and format but here's the reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/5ts87w/why_arent_there_more_animal_crossing_clones/
It's hard to believe it took 20-25 minutes to come up with that, but I don't recall doing anything but that between now and my last entry so I guess it did. Weird.
Now it's time to BREATHE and think about making the game itself.
7:02am - Instead of thinking about making the game itself I spent more time dicking around on Reddit.
7:20am - Still dicking around on Reddit, though at least this time it was responding to responses to my reddit post I linked earlier/wrote an hour and a half ago.
Time flies. And I still have to BREATHE and think about making the game itself.
So, where should I start?
I guess I could do like I did before, make a box and make some NPCs in the box and work on their AIs gradually. I'll probably make them capsules rather than boxes this time. I'm not sure what to do about terrain. Should I make it bumpy? Animal Crossing didn't have bumpy terrain, it was multi-tiered but flat. Should mine be multi-tiered? There should definately be underground 'buildings' since the farmland goes 'on top' or should there be 'farmland' in this Space Habitat; maybe the plants are all grown outside in zero G farming pods by robots? Or in something like hydroponic plant factories? I mean, now that I think of it, why would you grow plants for eating in your habitation ring when you could build habitats? Bloody hell this is making a mess of my plans, again. BREATHE.
8:15am - More dicking around on Reddit. I actually managed to forget the problem that made me worry so much. But here it is written down above this... Geez.
So right, ah, back to Reddit to ask about this. That's a good idea. I'll ask on /r/scifi/
8:47am - Still crafting my Reddit post. Had to pause to note, a police officer is in the McDonalds. I saw him accepting a clear plastic bag with something inside, and then he went back behind the counter with two employees. Don't know what's going on, but it's a little unnerving.
8:53am - https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/5tsyem/im_trying_to_design_a_space_habitat_for_a_video/?ref=share&ref_source=link
There's that. For now I'll try not to worry too much about the setting and focus on the mechanics of the game. I'll make a sandbox and experiment with villager AI for now.
Hmm... Blargh... I just came upon another thing. Villager homes. It'll be important to their AI. But, in Animal Crossing, the houses are bigger on the inside. I don't know if I want to do that or what. So hard to decide on these things. I wish I had a stronger design concept for this game, so I would know what to do. :/
10:01am - I'm still not really working on my game, mostly just checking reddit and chatting on discord. Actually thinking of taking a break and playing video games for a bit, but I'm frustrated at that because I want to have more progress on the actual game, even if it's superficial.
10:07am - *opens Unity* *closes Unity* Nope, game time.
1:00pm - I didn't actually play video games for three hours. It was more like two and then more Reddit. Lots of people talking on the two threads I posted this morning.
Made me realize a bit that while my goal is "Build a better Animal Crossing" I'm not entirely sure how to do that. I know what I want to do is make the NPCs more alive and more interesting, but I'm not sure just what I'll do in order to make that happen.
More detailed daily schedules, probably, and meaningful dialogue. Just those two things would add a lot.
1:26pm - Alright, I opened my Unity project, and put in a plane and a capsule, then saved it and closed it. I realized that if I'm going to build complex interactions I'll need a complex scene to have my capsule people move around in and do interactions in.
I'm going to need at least two individuals for them to have interactions with eachother, homes and jobs for each of them to have a daily routine, and some environment for them to interact with when they're not working, eating, or sleeping.
I want to keep things simple but for the complex emergent behavior I'm designing I need a kind of complex world. How am I going to build that?
I'll need to build it in a way that the NPCs can recognize what's what.
I'm thinking the 'village' will be built around one of the elevator spokes leading to the center of the station. There'll be a river running through it, around the circumferance of the hab. The water will be the hardest part to deal with. I'm not sure the ideal way to do it. Probably in simple sections for the most part, so that it doesn't need very detailed collision mesh.
Alright I think that's enough for now. It's 1:45pm. I'm getting a sore butt from sitting at McDonalds all day. I'm going to pack up and head home.