Hey again! This is a long one and there isn’t even a video, so dumb!
The majority of my time lately is spent working on Wunderwurld or running so I don’t have much else to talk about, the only thing to say about running is that I’m still managing to go out every single day for a run… but I am considerably less enthused about it.
Now before getting into Wunder dev I wanna talk about… Pokémon!
Isn’t Pokémon great!? My partner and I recently got the itch to “catch ‘em all” again despite neither of us ever finishing a Pokedex before, so after a bit of thinking we decided to get Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee (because none of the others a realistically doable tbh)
The game is a genuine blast and the catching minigame that replaces battling wild Pokémon is incredibly compelling, it‘s a vital part of making the game more accessible for someone with a job to play. I can defo see it influencing Wunderwurld a lot.
The 2 biggest things I wanna pull from the game is shinies like this staryu I caught! and a weight stat system for fishes you catch, it’s just an extra thing to get excited about.
We were always going to have unique variants of the creatures on the island but because of how excited we’ve been getting about shiny hunting, I definitely want to add systems in the game to motivate / encourage seeking them out.
Working less sometimes means working more
So I’m part-time now, which means I get 3 more days to work on this game! Let’s see if that actually resulted in more progress.
First of all, I added a basic building system to the game, it all works on a grid and so far can support 2x2 and 6x6 structures (4x4 needs a cheeky offset so I bailed for now), it’s a solid proof of concept for how building will work eventually. I left it there but I will need to add a lot more to get it working well; rotating things, tileable fencing & stone paths, etc.
Resources are gonna be needed for building and there’s no concrete way to get more yet. The island will start with a bunch of dead trees and rocks for early buildings, I plan to have crates drift down the river that could have resources in but that can’t be the only way to get more.
Trees could defo drop seeds that let you grow more but stones can’t really drop rock seeds (or they could and that would weird and cool!), So to take a leaf out of Stardew Valleys book again, Mines!!!
There’s gonna be a Mine building that lets you delve and explore for more resources through procedurally generated little areas, it’s gonna be incredibly limited and much smaller in scope than SVs but I’ve already got a solid design for how it will work so I’m hoping to jump in the next few weeks.
Resident Requirements
This feature has been in for a while but has been upgraded!
Now the creatures have memory! They record events to their event history, for now they only remember consumption events or “Eating Things” as it’s more commonly known, In the future they’ll remember a lot more.
Their memory can also be used by their Requirements, when they visit your island they’re not a resident yet and they’ll leave if they don’t like it there, Resident requirements will often just be a harder version of Discovery and Visiting requirements, the only difference is that the prior are passive whilst resident requirements will have a few event-based goals, like eating or seeing something.
These active goals are still controlled by the creature though, you can’t tell them to interact with something, they will simply ignore you. Meeting all of these conditions leads to…
Creature Quests!!!
When a creature becomes a resident of your island it’s official, they’re a fan of your overall vibe and they trust you, so it looks like your job is done… except it’s not. It’s actually just beginning.
The sole reason for why you’re on this island is because the Ferryman has tasked you with helping lost souls take care of their unfinished business, so as soon as they become residents you can start performing your solemn duty.
Each species will have a pool of different quests specific to them and each creature will grab a few at random when they spawn.
Completing these quests will let the creature finally move on, I haven’t figured out exactly how this will happen, it might be an interaction event, require a building or simply be a function of one of the boats that docks, to take souls on to the next stage of their after-life.
A big thing I’m trying to do is make sure everything always works, even as I add experimental new features, currently everything except the building system works with the save/load system, so you can save a creature, their memory and all progress towards their randomly chosen quests. I say this a lot but it’s really starting to feel like a game now.
My main goal next week is two-fold:
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Communicate things to the player, so I’m building the basic structure for the pause menu / journal thing that will let you track things like; island status, skill progress, calendar for events, overall player goals, discovered things and options.
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Full gameplay loop, this means adding the soul currency you get for helping creatures move on, having them actually move on and having something to spend that currency on.
What I did last week
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Implemented a basic building system
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Added creature memory
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Added creature quests
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Caught 2 Shiny Staryu, both had decent stats!
What I plan to do next week
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Pause Menu UI
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Section for Island Status
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Section for How To’s
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Implement creatures moving on
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Finish the Pokédex!!
That’s all folks! I think I can safely say the last week has been a success, I can absolutely see the light at the end of the burndown chart.
See you all next week for another update on what’s going in the world down wunder!