100 Days of Gamedev - Let's go!

I've opted in to the #100daysofgamedev challenge, where essentially I'll be working on this game every day for 100 days straight! Some days will be more productive than others, but even if I can spend 10 or 15 minutes that I otherwise wouldn't have, then I'm already better off.  Because this whole project is taking a little longer than I was hoping to get off the ground, the goal is to have a playable demo at the end of these 100 days. This project is already leaps and bounds ahead of the jam version here and I can't wait to share how far it's come! 

I've been keeping track of days on Discord, and when I have something visual to post I'll put it on Twitter. Some of the GIFS are too large for itch, but you can check them out HERE!

At the time of posting, I'm 25 days or 1 quarter of the way there! So far I've managed to do a little every day and I'm feeling the progression! I thought It'd be fun to break down what I've been working on over the past 25 days, so strap in, this might be a long one! 

Day 1: Added in dynamic fences and terrain tiles. I don't love the system and there's currently no way to destroy these things, but it's a start!

Day 2: Added in some NPC thought bubbles. NPCs will have different thoughts based on their condition and their surroundings. Now they emote for hunger, thirst, happiness, and react to the appearance of their surroundings. Also added in a little rain particle effect. I found it online so I can't really take credit, but it's cute and works great for my purposes!

Day 3: Added umbrellas to children NPCs when it's raining. Holding an umbrella changes how they interact with objects in the park. 

Day 4: A few bug fixes and added in some Adult NPC umbrellas. 

Day 5:  Overhauled the text system I had in place. I've never had a system in place for localization before so this was a learning experience. I only speak English and a bit of French so we'll see what happens in the future with translations, but the system is in place to switch between a ton of different languages. Who knows if I'll ever have the budget to properly localize into any of them, but I won't have to worry about the system being ready to go! 

To be honest I'm a little bit torn about what to do in the case of localization, since currently it's just me without a real budget. It is something I'd really like to add. If I can get this 100 days demo finished I may approach publishers or other funding, but for the moment I'm torn. 90% of the text in the game, at least so far, are simple nouns (basically titles for things), with a couple simple lines of dialogue peppered in for flavor. The other 10% is "story" dialogue which is the part I don't really trust machines to handle. Plus catching the nuisances of humor is just not something I'll be able to do. 

When I was initially testing the original system, I had added some Simplified Chinese and French terms for some of the park items, and used a combination of Wikipedia, and Google Translate and a sprinkling of ChatGPT. I do think that method was pretty accurate, but this was also used for naming simple  things like "Rock", and "Tree". Part of me wants to just go for it and add terms for everything and hope I can pay someone to check them later, but the other part is worried that first-impressions might make a bad translation worse than none? If you have any thoughts, feel free to weigh in!

Day 6:  More bug fixes and I drew a city bus. NPCs arrive by bus and I only had a school bus drawn which doesn't make sense for a city park. There's a shorter version of this bus too, but the bendy one is obviously more fun. I'm thinking maybe a bigger bus could be a park upgrade later on to get more people to your park.

Day 7:  Started working on a save system. Turns out there's a lot of information that needs to be kept track of so this will overall be a work in progress, but the framework is there. A robust save system isn't something I'd ever had to deal with before either. I've had games save scores but nothing with this kind of depth. Also learned that ini files have a limit on file size in Gamemaker (or maybe in general?) so that's interesting. 

Day 8: Bug fixes with the save system. NPCs were re-spawning with the wrong colored shirts and hair styles. Not a huge day, but better than nothing!

Day 9: This wasn't a very productive day. Put in a bunch of terms into my localization spreadsheet for dialogue and tooltips in the game.    

Day 10: Pixel_Dailies inspired me to draw a baby carriage with their "Buggy" theme. I didn't have a lot of time for gamedev so this felt like a good compromise! Having NPCs occasionally spawn pushing a carriage makes the world feel more diverse. Right now the carriages clip through walls and stuff because they don't collide and I'm not sure how I want to handle that. But I think say for that small non-issue, they add a lot without actually adding anything! 

Day 11: Was working on a quest system. Each park will have a set of goals to achieve so I needed a way to track all of that. Since the quests will all be so different per level, I've just been hard-coding them in. I might regret that decision later but for now it's coming along. 

Day 12: Was feeling a little under the weather so the only thing I managed to accomplish was drawing a little sleeping cat sprite. Eventually this will be part of a quest.

Day 13: Added some unnecessary character portraits for the NPC children and some placeholder dialogue. NPC names are randomly generated and for now just choose a random line or 2 of dialogue. Eventually their dialogue will be influenced by their condition and surroundings, while keeping the random factor. 

Day 14: Started mocking up a research tree.  

Day 15: Was working on the day-end sequence. When each day ends there will be a possibility for a cutscene of sorts based on what's going on in your park. Broke a bunch of things in the process and didn't actually manage to accomplish much. 

Day 16 :Pretty sure I got the cutscene system working, which also means I've got the beginnings of animals moving in to the park. Right now there's only a birdhouse, but depending on its surroundings (Is it near a berry bush? A birdfeeder? What kind of seeds are in the feeder?) different birds will be attracted to come live there. There's plans to add other animal dwellings too. Some that you can build yourself and some that will be a part of the map. They will all function in more-or-less the same way. 

I also fixed up the buttons. I was experimenting with a few different looks so the project was full of mis-matching icons. Now they're all cleaned up! 

Day 17: Started setting up utilities. I admit this was really an afterthought, but I had already drawn the power pole, with a slightly different intention, but it dawned on me that some of the buildings and attractions would need power in the real world. This lead me to think that managing electricity in the park could add an extra layer of gameplay. Of the 25 days, this was the most frustrating and I'm pretty sure I created more problems than I solved. 

Day 18: Some buildings need power to function! At this point there's still some objects that need the "needs power" condition but the system seems to be working now! The biggest issue I was facing was the NPCs not ignoring the buildings when they didn't have power. I didn't quite solve it the way I was hoping to and the NPCs will still go there, but they won't interact with non-powered buildings so for now, that's going to have to do! 

Day 19: Found some oversights with the power system so worked on a few bugs there. Not a big day for progress! 

Day 20: Also wasn't a super productive day. Did a mockup for a controls menu. As it stands you cannot change the keyboard controls although I'd like to add that in sometime.I wouldn't say most people would be playing with keyboard anyway. I will likely have a couple more controls to add after, so I'm thinking I'll have to create smaller versions of the buttons. I also think I'm going to try to make the default keyboard controls easily playable with 1 hand (so change 0, and have any additional controls on the left).

Day 21: Bug fixes. If I knew what a pain in the arse adding a power requirement was going to be, I might've left it out since it was a kind of spur of the moment decision.I am glad that it's in the game now, but It was definitely a bit of a time sink, and I'm sure there's problems I've yet to find! 

Day 22: Started adding in the system for locked items, I still need to decide which items will be available to the player from the start but I'm pretty sure it's working. Soon, I want to start working on the research tree. I've been playing with some designs for that on paper, so hopefully before day 50 that will all be in place! Also fixed some bugs and made sure the selection boxes are drawing at the right size. 

Dy 23: Just some collision bug fixes! I think there's still a few stragglers, but the issue is not all of the items are exactly the right size for the grid, so some of them need an offset so they center themselves on the grid. It's not game-breaking, just a little bit annoying!

Day 24: Added in the adult portraits for the NPCS. Men and women share a base, so there isn't a whole lot of variation but they were throwing an error because I didn't have their sprites set and I wanted them to at least look different to the children NPCS. I'd like to overhaul all the character portraits entirely at some point but for now as long as there's something, I think it's okay! Started working on a mockup for the staff-hiring/management menu as well. 

Day 25: Sundays are always busy but I was working on the logic for hiring staff. I want the number of staff to be limited to how many of a certain building exists. For example, to hire a scientist, you will need to build a research station. Each research station will let the player hire up to 2 researchers to work in the park. 

Honestly, I don't remember the last time I was this committed to a project. I've been picking away at this project for a while, but I don't think I've worked on this or any other game project this many days in a row, so it has definitely been an experience so far! Despite not accomplishing much some days, even putting in 10-15 minutes gets me  one step closer to the end! 

 I have a pretty clear idea of what's left to do to get a little demo up, so I'm hoping I can stay on track! 

What's still on the ol' To Do list:

• Completing the save system
• Creating Item UI (See info about objects, sell objects, etc)
• Hiring/Firing Staff 
  • Janitors
  • Scientists
• Research System (Earn research points and unlock new items)
• Menus
  • Staff
  • Park Stats
  • Research
• Music & SFX
• Quest Setup (there's currently only 3 quests and they're all early tutorial things.)
• Sidequests (The money makers). 
• Day-end cutscene (or something). The idea is, at the end of each day there's a chance something "fun" or interesting could happen. If you attract an animal, perhaps you'll see them moving in or something. I have a couple ideas to try, but it may be a simple prompt at the end of each day. 

That's the broad strokes of what's left for an MVP. Obviously there's a million small things that need to be done, and there's a couple features I would love to add that aren't as important, plus there's a ton of items and animations I'm dying to add! 

Wish me luck with the next 75 days, and here's hoping I don't burn out! 

Thanks for reading! <3