Hello team.
It is the 9th of May and I have finally actually worked on the game again.
I haven’t written a Devlog in a while mostly because… I just wasn’t doing anything with the game. Which sounds bad, but I think I was genuinely intimidating myself out of starting. Learning a new engine felt scary and overwhelming and I kept putting it off.
So this month I told myself I would pick it back up and do it live on stream. Chat would hold me accountable, keep me on track (lol) and I would get through it.
And honestly it worked way better than expected!
Learning Godot
I’ve done two streams this week learning Godot (which apparently is pronounced like Gal Gadot and not “Go-Dot,” which hurts me emotionally).
I’ve been following a YouTube series by Michael Games Official and so far it’s been really good, but also REALLY hard as a beginner programmer. There’s a lot of little shortcuts and coding language things where experienced programmers instantly understand what’s happening, and I’m just staring at symbols like:
“yes thats a thing.”
Or he will explain something, I copy it, he changes the whole thing and I sit there wondering why we did it wrong in the first place. I don’t mind going slow, I *do* mind doing work that is redundant.
Also Twitch chat has told me about 11 times what language I’m coding in and I still forget every single time immediately after they tell me.
In my defence:
- I’m on a gym cut
- my brain fog is horrific
- I picked maybe the worst possible time ever to try learning programming because of this.
Overall though, considerably less scary than anticipated, and it is actually awesome to be able to write you know, 1 or 3 scripts, even if they’re completely copied, and watch something happen in the game.
I Actually Made Something
The biggest thing is that I actually HAVE something now.
There’s a character on screen.
He moves.
He’s collides with walls.
There’s idle animations and walking animations for NESW directions.
The walking animation looks kind of ass currently but it’s placeholder art so I’m not stressing too much. I will eventually make my own sprite sheet for the main character and maybe 1 or 2 NPC’s for the prototype, but this structure will be the skeleton.
I’ve also added walls, floors, terrain, collision, all that sort of stuff. Which sounds small but seeing an actual contained playable space instead of just a design document felt really good.
The terrain/tilemap stuff especially has been super cool to learn, I love the fact I can just paint on tiles, paint on pathways, paint on whatever I want. I don’t know why, but I originally thought making a game with tiles would require me to copy and paste 30 thousand tiles and move them individually. I am so glad that is not the case.
The camp will probably be the first area I work on properly because it’s the least complicated thing to start with. It builds up to be quite complex, but I think I can manage that when I get to it (she says, oh so confidently).
The first play around with the tiles and terrain was an attempt at recreating a viewers favourite Bionicle.
Don’t worry about the weird Re9 Leon Kennedy floating head- I had a vision to start and its there because its funny now.
Dungeon Generation Is Cooked
I also started looking into Pokémon Mystery Dungeon dungeon generation.
Specifically this breakdown:
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Dungeon Generation Breakdown
What the hell is going on? Like genuinely.
I understand SOME of it individually. I can understand:
- this generates rooms
- this connects hallways
- this places tiles
But I don’t understand how all of it connects together visually in-engine. I think that’s the part my brain struggles with most currently – translating code logic into an actual visual result.
I’ll be honest:
I do not think I could make Mystery Dungeon style generation on my own, probably ever. That feels like “I need an actual programmer helping me” territory because my brain looks at that documentation and immediately leaves my body.
Character Design Stuff
I’ve also been thinking about protagonist design a lot. I want the main character to feel fairly gender neutral visually so players can project onto them more easily. Probably shorter hair, softer features, fairly androgynous styling. I’ve always personally been able to connect to protagonists regardless of gender, but I also know not everybody experiences games that way.
Streaming Game Dev Is Chaos
One thing I did not expect:
game dev streaming is SO slow.
I did an eight hour stream last night and I think I got through maybe one hour of tutorial content because I kept:
- talking to chat
- getting distracted
- karaoke
- opening TikTok “for 1 scroll”, and then getting sucked into the thirst traps.
- talking about Bionicles and Bey Blades (why is their lore so deep?)
The usual. But honestly the programming community on Twitch has been insanely nice, everybody is so willing to help, I was not expecting this. I was expecting people to be way more lame, “you idiot its clearly THIS”, but I haven’t had ANY of that. Knock on wood it stays that way.
I had a few trolls in chat but apparently that’s just standard Twitch behaviour, so whatever. The overall vibe has honestly been really wholesome though. It genuinely feels like everybody wants to see you improve.
Gym & Real Life Stuff
Outside of game dev:
I started with a coach at my gym/PT and since February I’m officially down 5kg, which is huge for me.
I’ve gotten a LOT stronger too, but the downside is that this cut has absolutely nuked my energy levels. I am tired constantly and my brain feels like soup half the time. Hopefully I get a proper refeed soon because I think my body is starting to hate me a little bit.
I’m still riding Lenny consistently too and we have a two-day competition coming up at the end of the month which should be really fun. We probably won’t win, but we will absolutely try our best and have a good time.
Cosplay
The Lady D RE8 cosplay stream is finally happening on the 15th. I am SO excited! The dress arrived and technically my arms fit in it… but the sleeves are fighting for their lives slightly which I THINK means the gym is working.
The Sett cosplay has unfortunately been massively neglected because life has just been busy, but I definitely still want to work on it.
Financially Concerning But Emotionally Thriving
Work has slowed down a lot lately which has been really nice. I’ve been able to focus more on:
- streaming
- gym
- game dev
- having an actual life again
I’m streaming Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays currently which has been really fun.
Financially though?
My car has cost me an arm and a leg.
My dogs have cost me an arm and a leg.
So things are slightly horrifying currently, but that’s adulthood baby.
Japan?!
My dad is taking me to Japan later this year which is INSANE.
I genuinely do not know why he is paying for me but I am absolutely not arguing. We’re also planning to cosplay while we’re there:
- I’ll do Maki
- Dad is doing Nanami
Yes it’s nerdy, no I do not care.
Final Thoughts
I think the biggest thing right now is that Unchosen finally feels REAL.
Not good yet, not polished, it’s not even remotely close to what I picture in my head. But it’s real! There’s finally something on screen instead of just ideas sitting in documents!
This clip also has nothing to do with the content of the stream I did yesterday but enjoy it anyway
https://www.twitch.tv/ayeej/clip/SilkyPleasantPartridgeImGlitch-pRA42cKuwnqzLcY7
Thanks for reading team. Hopefully the next update isn’t six years away.
AyeeJ's Site 
Leave a comment