SECRET KEEP - Dev Video 10 - "Towers: Entryways, Basic Rooms, Crossbow Guards"

Made some more good progress with the towers.

- Can build any sized tower.

- Land around that tower is automatically flattened and reserved, so that no trees, grass or other objects get placed there.

- Discuss thoughts on future tower generation & mission activities!

SECRET KEEP - Dev Video 6, 7, 8, 9 - Building Towers & Flattening Land

Catching up on the past few weeks!
It's been the lead up to Christmas and New Years, and now both are done!
But I was also very pleased to get a bunch of things done on the project.

• Taking stock of the project, before embarking on a stint of development coming up!
• Tweaked the player controller. Integrating a more grounded player with blackjack, sword, torch, etc. Swimming.
• Thinking about plans for building towers, flattening the land, etc.

• Basic terrain flattening code working!
• Thinking through all the steps that need to be done to get this working "automatically" for each tower built.

• Got automatic building of  towers and flatting the land working.
• I can now build towers of rectangular proportions, and it automatically flattens the terrain, with padding and falloff.
• Not yet reserving the land for the building, so currently still getting grasses, trees and other objects being spawned inside the buildings.

• Tweaking the tower generation system. Smoother code. Updated Blender kit pieces.
• Talking about my ideas for a Reserved Land system.
• Talking about ideas for a tower generation system that's more formalised and contextually aware.
• Was still working with 8m x 8m x 3m kit pieces here. Thinking about 10m x 10m x 4m room size instead.

SECRET KEEP - Dev Video 5 - Menus, Save Format, "Find the Flag" Mission Stub!

It's a real joy to be getting back into proper development of SECRET KEEP.

I had to take time away to learn more programming (making MUZTEK Base Game systems), to figure out how to fully Pause and Unpause the game properly, and how to do Save & Load of game state.

Now I'm back, and I've integrated these concepts into SECRET KEEP in a basic way, with a Menu System in place, a basic Save & Load system working, and a basic Mission Generation loop in place from the menu, into the game, and back out again.

Here I show the basic menu, save, load, mission generation loop in action...

 

It's great to now have this in place, as I can start to actually work on game systems, mission types, NPCs, player abilities, etc, all working within this foundational framework I have in place.

Here's a bunch of screenshots I also took at this point in time!

SECRET KEEP - Dev Video 4 - Mission Structure Ideas

I've pulled away from the hand-crafted idea of Secret Keep, and I'm leaning back into the procedural generation systems I've been working on.

Here I discuss the broad concepts behind how missions will be generated...

 

Here's a series of screenshots I took at this stage...

SECRET KEEP - Dev Diary 2 - Level Design - Landscape Blockout Timelapse

I have blocked out a terrain & built the castle walls surrounded by a moat.

This will be my prototype / test space for building the game.

Although, as game dev often goes, it may just turn into the final game!

Who knows?!

SECRET KEEP - Dev Video 1 - Project Goals & Inspiration

Secret Keep begins!

 

Here I will take you through the journey of making the game.

Over the journey of this Dev Diary series, we'll be looking at making up the game design, the art & music, programming the AI, creating the characters, etc.

Let's get started! :D

SECRET KEEP - An immersive story of intrigue and choices

Announcement!

Work has begun on my new game... 

SECRET KEEP

Secret Keep is an immersive interactive experience inspired by the immersive, simulation-rich world of Thief: The Dark Project, combined with the living story line of games like King's Quest 3: To Heir is Human.

Awaken...  It is another morning at the castle.

The people stir and the sounds of a keep begin to clatter and rumble.

You wake, and go about your chores.

The wedding banquet approaches, three days hence!

And you must play your part...

Play out your public role as a servant among the castle folk.

But also... your secret part, as a spy, an agent, within the walls, watching, eavesdropping, manipulating events to alter the outcome, and ultimately changing the course of the story.

How will your story unfold?

Stay tuned for more news as it comes to hand!

To follow along with the development and get the latest news, I have set up a website for the game Secret Keep here...

https://www.secretkeep.net/

Lofi Epic - Dev Log #3 - Magic Portals

Here I've added MAGIC PORTALS!


The player can see through the portal into the other location, and they can also jump through themself.

I am still developing the actual ideas of what to do with my portals in the game.  Yet to be finalised!  But these are just test ones for now!

Lofi Epic - Dev Log #2 - Guards, Animals, Banners, Portals

Here I've added...

• Some GUARDS with basic detection AI.  (They detect you based on whether you're standing in the light.)
• Some ANIMALS with basic ecology AI (they get hungry and thirsty, and go to eat and drink as needed.  They flee from you if they detect you).
• Added CLOTH BANNERS that blow in the wind.
• A basic DAY/NIGHT CYCLE.
• I wrote my own cross-platform CUSTOM PLAYER CONTROLLER.  I'm using InControl so I can support Windows, Xbox One, PS4, etc.  It has support for keyboard/mouse, or gamepad.

Lofi Epic - Dev Log #1 - Map Blockout

This is a prototype I'm building, which might become my next released game.

It's working project title is "Lofi Epic", because I want it to feel epic and meaningful, to have a resonant story with a good start, middle and end, but to be able top produce it as a lone developer, it has to be lofi!



Here I've blocked out the map for the game in very rough terms.

Lofi Epic - Dev Log #0 - Map Foundations

This is a glimpse of the first steps of putting together my Lofi Epic prototype.

I started by blocking out the map based on an old piece I did in high school in 1995!



I always intended this map to be fuel for a game, or a book (or even a movie or TV show).

So here goes!

My concept for this game is for it to be an "immersive adventure game", taking a lot from the immersive sim genre, but also from adventure games such as King's Quest 3!

Follow along to see the progress.