Devtober 2022 Midmortem

I would add more detail and polish if I were more open and had more time. There's more to say, but I'll leave it as it is. Hopefully, this is an interesting read.

I participated in Devtober to build habits and "discipline," which (spoilers!) was mostly successful. However, it has me thinking about my game and myself. Lizard State has been my hobby project since quarantine, and ideally will continue to be. (So, mid-mortem, not yet dead.) My main goal is to have fun while making it, so my priorities will be skewed compared to another developer aiming to release something. It's a solo project (against my better judgement) and I'm intentionally ignoring scope.

Lizard State is a dungeon crawler. At the start of the month, it had one hardcoded floor and fighting as the only gameplay. There was no story. Procedural generation was in the works but not interesting to play with. It was technically a minimum viable product. You and your AI partner explored a cave, picked some fights, gathered food from the hardcoded source, and left the cave to win. (Or you died and lost. Or you didn't pick up food before leaving, which happened a lot in playtesting.)

The greatest benefit from regular work is familiarity with the code and its architecture. This lets me confidently create systems that are flexible and well-integrated. And, I can also rework existing systems that aren't as well architected. This reduces the amount of repeated work from relearning how and why I set things up, letting me work much faster. This month, I finished the multi-floor system and started a cool new approach to procedural generation. (Shoutouts to Roguelike Celebration! Check out their VODs.)

There were days were I wasn't up for crazy architecture shenanigans. In days I was tired or rushed, I was able to iron out bugs and small TODOs. This made the codebase a lot healthier compared to before. If I didn't feel like coding, I could work on the story. The story is always on my mind, and I'd think of a plot development or an episode and throw it in a notes app. However, dedicating time everyday helped me make it more formal. I have a central document containing literally everything, and maintaining it instead of creating scattered notes helps fit everything together and avoids inconsistencies.

It wasn't all perfect. This time did not come from nowhere. I occasionally procrastinated, so while I was able to work almost every day, it came at the cost of sleep. Also, trying to post online was draining, since I don't usually. I'm a perfectionist, in the bad way. I had trouble wording progress in an exciting way, or creating and editing footage to be presentable. Writing this document is also taxing, but since it's less public and the audience is other devs, I'm fine with it.

Technically, keeping the game to myself is "acceptable" if its just a fun thing for me. For the sake of the game, I know I shouldn't. If I could commit more to this, I could gather a team, or do something crazy. However, I feel like I would lose the fun in developing it, and the personal connection to the project. In any case, its slowly making its way forward.

Since you're still here, here's an advertisement my plans for the future. Lots of buzzwords and pie-in-the-sky ideas incoming.

Lizard State is (supposed to be) a moody dungeon crawler about loneliness and community in an apathetic world. It's a parody of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, featuring staple elements such as partners and saving the world as well as semi-anthros and isekai. Players explore, trade, fight, and escape from unwinnable danger. The design focuses on progression through items and limited passive regeneration. The story has themes of anti-colonialism and aroace relationship anarchy.