Devtober
Over the last month I've been posting updates on my game development progress with the hashtag #devtober. I didn't have a specific goal in mind nor did I start something new for the month, I just thought it was a fun excuse to post daily progress.
My main focus throughout the month was finishing off a big concept piece for my new game, creating a devlog for that game and to begin work on my game engine to facilitate the new game.
Concept art
The first half of this month I spent finishing off my space museum concept art. I started this back in August, with a view to create an entire museum concept for my game and it worked out quite nicely. It proves museums can have a grand sense of scale with lots of small details.
The majority of my work for this was the adding the final, smaller details. For example I created walls, trees and benches to decorate the outside and I also created over 50 unique characters to scatter throughout the concept.
Devlog
After finishing the space museum concept, I set to work creating the first devlog for the game. Since it is the first devlog I really wanted to hook people into the idea for the game. I spent some extra time to film myself outside, get B roll from my city and used footage from my recent holiday. This all culminated in a well received video that I am happy with although I am a little worried how I can keep this going into the second devlog, especially since it will have a stronger technical focus.
Engine Architecture
Now the game concept art is finished I need to turn towards game engine development. Some elements of my game engine are 2 years old and written in a way I wouldn't write them now. It also relies on older versions of .net and monogame, which I would like to update. I'm looking at upgrading the engine to take advantage of some ideas I've recently learnt about. In particular I want to include automated testing and properly separate the different systems into their own areas.
Misc
I went to DDD east midlands conference! I saw talks on open source software, technical debt, onion architecture and solid principles.
My youtube channel hit 500 subscribers! Roughly half are from game dev, which is fantastic since I've only done that for 18 months.
My twitter hit 100 followers! I've never been on twitter before but this felt like a big moment.
Thoughts
Devtober was fun for me. I'd love to participate again next year if I can.
- Skeffles