The Prototype Dream Game

Make a smaller version of it first

Hallå pals!

Jonas here with another issue of Indie Notebook to get some ideas out of my noggin, and to inspire you to do the same.

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The act of writing and publishing the last issue of Indie Notebook directly caused me to rethink my priorities and shift my focus to a new project. This is cool because going in, I had absolutely no intentions for that.
I got a lot of sincere and encouraging comments and messages from you guys, which also plays a big part in this decision. Thank you for that!

The Prototype Dream Game

In the last issue of Indie Notebook I shared the idea for my dream game. I really didn’t think much about that post when I sent it (except I had a lot of fun writing it). So the lively responses surprised me quite a bit.

To be honest, my initial urge was to throw myself right in and make the dream game NOW. But I calmed myself, because as I said then and still feel now, it would be a tricky game to make, for several reasons, mostly the game mechanics and the scale of its world.
But writing down all my thoughts about the idea did make me realize why I’ve always been so excited about it. Which made me think, “what if I would do something in that spirit, but smaller and simpler?”

And then I thought about this other loose prototype I’ve been kicking around for a bit.

It’s just been this gimmick and vibe that I didn’t have a clear direction for.

But I can definitely apply the core principles from the dream game to this, and at the same time keep the mechanics much simpler than they would be in that game.

Just to clarify what these principles are:

• Overcoming the same natural obstacles in the environment in different ways, like the story I told about my friends in the beginning of the previous post.

• Finding stuff/items in the world that all have more than one use, like in Spelunky everything exists for more than one reason and stuff interact with each other, not just with the player.

• Unexpected and chaotic consequences when you make mistakes, like getting swept away by a river.

I decided to jump in and tinker to see if this new angle would actually get me unblocked.

It bothered me how flat and boring the ground was. So one of the first things I did was make an uneven terrain with a mix of soft hills and steep cliffs.
I quickly realized that the player controller I had set up for the video above wasn’t gonna cut it. I was pushing around a rigidbody using physics, which from a programmer’s perspective is kinda like trying to tame a glitchy, wild horse. One of the biggest challenges in making Surmount was to get this player-rigidbody to do what we wanted, I don’t know if we could have made that game without it, but it’s hard to deal with if you’re going for a precise game-feel.
So what I ended up doing was to rewrite the player movement in this prototype completely, without the physics. And honestly I surprised myself when I did this.

I sat with it for 10 hours one day and managed to get nearly all the basic player mechanics in there with a surprising level of polish. Now the lil toy-soldier tilts with the angle of the ground, they slow down when running uphill and they speed up as they run downhill. It’s already fun to just run around like this and jump between rocks like a zen master.

I was rereading quotes from the book The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac and found this part where Japhy talks about hiking/climbing up a mountain.

“Don't think. Just dance along. It's the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you don't hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like zen.”

This defines just what I’m going for with the walking in this game. What’s exciting is I had already placed a bunch of boulders in the prototype world the previous week and had that exact sensation as I skipped between them.

I used to drift around a lot about what Ploppy Weather would or could be until I wrote about WILD WILD WILD (the dream game). That drifting seems to have settled now. I know what the message of the story is, and I know how it begins and how it ends. At least roughly, there might be changes, but I feel confident about it.

Since the release of Surmount in May I’ve been trying to come up with small game ideas that fit neatly into some Steam genre or trend. Which I still think is a great idea. It’s just I think those types of games don’t come as naturally to me. Or rather, I don’t feel as passionately about them as I do with something like this.
My new plan is to go with my gut and pitch Ploppy Weather. I might start sending it around to publishers in about a month (soonest) or beginning of next year (more likely). My goal is to get funding for it so I can work on it for a year.

So yeah, that’s the current plan! Even though there’s still a lot I haven’t said about the project I’m gonna call that enough for today.

Thank you all for the encouraging messages and vibes! It means a lot. ❤️

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Mini Notes

📝 Blogpost - What makes a great adventure game

Looking back at this blogpost I wrote in Marsh before I had any idea about what I’m up to now is quite fun. It’s like an early clue. I have a feeling I’ll return to this from time to time to remind myself of what I wanna accomplish with this game.

🗞️ Article - The ‘Busy’ Trap

“My role is just to be a bad influence, the kid standing outside the classroom window making faces at you at your desk, urging you to just this once make some excuse and get out of there, come outside and play.”

Sorry I don’t have time to expand my thoughts on this article, I’m too busy. Just read it. Unless you’re too busy, then that’s cool.

🎮 Game - Death Stranding

I finished Death Stranding for the first time this weekend. I’ve been playing it on and off since it came out in 2019. Usually when I like a game I play through it in a couple of weeks. It would probably have been the same with this one, it’s just so riddled with crap.
I love this game but they put another game on top of it that I don’t wanna engage with.

There are so many cutscenes, there’s a total of 7 hours of them and they’re mostly talking and explaining stuff.

The BT’s are so irritating. I haven’t found a fun way to deal with them and I’m still confused about how they work. I wish there was a peaceful mode without any enemies cause they just slog it down.

And they try to make you optimize the fun out of the game by building highways and shortcuts across the map.

I’d just like to go on a stroll with my psychic baby in peace, please.

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Panel of the week

(from Space Deer)

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Thank you for reading Indie Notebook! I’d love to hear what today’s issue made you think about.

Take care and have a creative week.