Posted August 04, 2023 by Julshar
Hello All!
The Forestation was made for Improve Your Game Jam 28, so this post will cover everything that happend while developing it. I didn't create devlog at the time of developing the game. The game was unplayable for long time and when it finally was I decided to polish it a bit before making it public. English is not my native language so beware of possible language abominations ;)
This project was originally started as entry to Trijam #227. The theme was "trees" so I wanted to create a game where you controll trees and the opposite force are lumberjacks that try to cut trees down. I also aimed for RTS game since I did not ever create one and I like games of this genere. Quickly after starting the developement I realised that it is way out of reach to implement everything that I considered basic in 3 hours (please, don't ask me what I was thinking before that). I did all graphics and sounds in less than 1.5 hour, but after stumbling upon pathfinding I knew I'll need more time. So I spent 3 days programming game mechanics and designing UI but still was far from over. Then I decided that I'll make the project entry for Improve Your Game Jam 28. Here is what has been done to that point:
Also, the first screen applied to post presents the gameplay from that time.
Following sections describe what has been done during each day of developement from 24 July (Day 1) to 3 August (Day 11)
Day 1:
As the developement of "The Forestation" did not continue immediately after those initial 3 days I needed to plan my dev strategy. I concidered making the whole project from zero since I did not remembered clearly all the code logic, and saw flaws that could be fixed by implementing it in different way. However in the end I decided to continue working on project in its current state because I knew there will be much more things during developement that I cannot predict now, so it is pointless to implement everything again already since I consider this project a prototype. So I spent much time of day 1 recalling code logic. While doing it I only improved and optimized it a bit without doing any drastic logic changes. The most important change was probably organizing Unit properties in code. Also I planned what will be done in the next days.
Day 2:
First real changes were made this day. Here is what has been done:
I also worked on abilities in UI panel, but has not finished. Left it for the next day.
Day 3:
I started with a warmup today, which was implementing unit rotation on move. It was an easy task considering the base class remaster from the day before. Then I went for the todays hard stuff which was creating interactable UI buttons for tree planting with whisp. I ended up with a working version of ordering whisp to plant any tree (transform into it). In the future I will make whisp first transform into saplings that grow slowly instead of trees growing immediately but I decided to leave it as it is for now (I ended up never implementing this anyway :p). There are some bugs in current version, but for now it will do. I also added a cancel button in the UI, so after selecting tree planting it can still be canceled.
Next on list is adding economy. To finish the day I added current chlorophyll and time display in the bottom of the UI. I also added cost to all trees.
Day 4:
Things that were done today:
Game is finally semi-playable. There are still bugs to fix for sure, and of course the whole project is far from finished, but I'm satisfied with what has been done to this point.
Day 5, 6, 7, 8:
Unfortunately I've had a relocation to another city planned for this period of time so this days were spent packing stuff, transporting and unpacking at new place. No progress was made during that time.
Day 9:
Finally can continue the developement of the project. I've got a large list of things to do. For now I'll prioritize implementing gameplay elements since I want to make the mechanics as good as possible and make the game fun to play. Here are things that I did this day:
Day 10:
Things done today:
Day 11:
I did almost everything that I wanted to do before publishing the game (with the exception of remaking lumberjack and stone visuals). So today I added following things:
This is the last day of developement. I think that everything considered a must was implemented into the game. There are still some fun extra things like fog of war that I would wish to add, but that will have to wait. To finish this day I did some playtesting. During that I fixed some important bugs and crashes and tried my best to balance the game.
Sorry for the chaotic post, but it is late night in my timezone and I seriously need to sleep now. Thanks for reading and have a great day!