Ye Fallen Gods Devlog 1: The Renaming
Also on celebrating initial commits, prototyping, and how to feel good when you don't know something.
Sorry I’ve been away for a while…
Having a full-time job, being a dad and husband, holding a position in a union, and developing a video game is a lot to do every single day. But it’s all worth it. And I’ve somehow managed to be more or less successful at all of those things, which is pretty cool! If you’re reading this, however, you probably aren’t here to read about me, so let’s talk about the game!
A new title (hopefully a permanent one!)
Firstly, I’ve changed my working title to what I hope will be a permanent one. “Ye Fallen Gods” does not really exist according to Google, and yet is a perfect fit a game where the player challenges the Gods outright, felling them, and then doing it over and over again. I think it’s evocative and marketable, and I’m happy with it as a permanent title. Mythfall, while also thematically appropriate, is pretty commonly used in media, and in fact is already taken by a neat browser-based pseudo MMO.
The first commit!
Shortly after publishing my first (zeroth?) devlog, I completed the absolute barebones systems of main scenes, multiplayer lobby manager, and a global script singleton. After celebrating the feeling of committing this fully in git, I immediately scrapped my basic implementation of scene changing and rewrote it the next day, but hey, it works now!
Prototyping
Since that first commit, I’ve been laying the framework for efficient production of the prototyping, including creating a smooth, third-person camera and movement system, defining PlayerCharacters into classes that will fit smoothly in with a P2P server-authoritative system, and (with the help of a cool plugin called Godot Gameplay Systems) laying the framework for a system of abilities and passive talents.
This week I’ve even started working on resources for storing account information, although with the announcement of W4 Cloud I may be putting that off for a bit. I’m really excited about the kind of service W4 Games is offering here, and it’s going to be a PERFECT fit for my project. While I can probably hack together an account management system with a SQLite database and some kind of API to access it, I’m not sure it’s even feasible for me to create something scalable because that’s a very challenging process and I don’t know the first thing about any of it. I’m hoping I can get into the beta and start integrating their services into my project while testing the product for them!
A little bit on not knowing anything
This whole project has been one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever taken on for myself. And while sometimes, just figuring out how to do a very basic thing is a three-hour process of reading, writing, and decyphering errors, the frustrations are easily outweighed by feeling like I’m that much closer to my goal! I thoroughly relish and enjoy a problem that I know I can solve, and this process is an endless supply of that. I am sure I’ll get it in the end, and even if it ends up taking longer than I want, I’m still happy at the end of every session knowing that I made a little more progress towards making this vision come to life.
I can confidently say I no longer “don’t know anything”. I am learning something and that is enough to feel good about where I’m going, and hopefully someday deliver a product that people will enjoy as much as I’m enjoying the process of creating it.
Thanks for reading!
I promise I’ll come back soon with more info and updates. Hopefully I’ll have some real hard gameplay footage from my prototyping experiences soon! Until then, have fun!