WeirdBeard's Blog

Game Dev Goals for 2020

I never liked New Year’s Resolutions, they always seemed overly hyped and easily abandoned. Why should I wait until the new year to plan for improvement? Why not start whenever I feel determined to improve myself? Last year I got serious about learning game dev, then the holidays stole my attention. Live and learn. Now I have returned to my quest and started adventuring again. For a little under 3 weeks now (check out my improvement log) I have worked steadily on my business and game dev. To succeed I set goals for myself.

This year I will publish three games, one to Steam, one to mobile, and all to itch.io. These will all be small games with the first being Treasure Hunter (formerly Dungeon Explorers) and the other two are undecided. I know they’ll have an RPG flavor to them and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Well before I can make games 2 and 3 I have to finish game 1.

Treasure Hunter: Quixxen’s Suit

I code named this Dungeon Explorers, however, as I’ve coded more I updated the name to fit my story line. You are a treasure hunter working for High Sorceress Minuet helping her find the Legendary Quixxen’s Suit, an equipment set that imparts great power to its wearer. Treasure Hunter is a small idle/incremental game based off Matter of Scale. Visit my devlogs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 to follow my progress. Later this week I’ll post devlog 7 and discuss implementing a draggable window and a greyboxed research tree.

Rather than get lost in side quests this time I created a map of how to get from here to there. With the current COVID-19 outbreak I have lots of time on my hands and what better way to use it then to learn game dev and finish my game. Here is a high-level view of my path forward.

• Early April – release Treasure Hunter alpha to itch.io
  • basic game play with quests and research tree
  • early graphics covering the first 3 areas
• Late April – release Treasure Hunter beta to itch.io
  • improved game play with more quests goals and a larger research tree
  • early graphics for all areas
  • bug fixes
• Late May – release Treasure Hunter v1.0 to itch.io
  • a good assortment of quest goals, and the full starting research tree
  • improved graphics and layout
  • bug fixes
• Late June – release Treasure Hunter v1.1 to itch.io
  • new feature – Adventurers which allows per character optimization similar to research, however, the character can move between zones
  • bug fixes
• Monthly – until at least May 2021
  • add new features
  • bug fixes

While polishing my code in May, I will brainstorm and design my second game idea, which means I can start that quest in June.

What game are you working on? When and where do you plan to release it?