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2021_In_RoguelikeDev
A genetically engineered single-celled organism is injected into the patient. Upon encountering the first bacteria colonies of the infection the cell starts devouring. Before long the masses are threatening to overwhelm the cell and a plan B is made. The cell's DNA contains remnants of an old virus. After adding receptor genes, retrieved from killed bacteria, into the mix, cell production is switched to virions. A new virus is slowly released from the cell and starts spreading among the bacteria. Owing to the matching receptors from its new gene the virions attach to the bacteria and kill them from withing. The battle has started.
In Innit you control a single-celled organism and help the immune system fight off foreign and domestic invaders: bacteria, viruses, cancer and more. Careful though, after all you are a foreign organism too, so you need try and avoid being attacked yourself. The core feature of the game is that everything is alive: the player character, NPCs, most items and the game world itself. Every living being in the game carries DNA that determines their properties and available actions.
Innit is a hobby project that I'm working on in my free time. Development rogress will be on the slower side, but the game is open source. I will make a particular effort to organise and document the project in a manner that is onducive to contribution from anyone who is interested. Finally a classic ascii look was chosen because the organisms and pathogens are so abstract that representing them with a letter is a rather apt visualisation.
Summed up in two words, development in 2020 had been all about managing expectations. The first and most important step last year was getting a mental block out of the way and resuming development at all. While the idea behind the genetics system was sound, the implementation had suffered from being too ambitious and - as a consequence - too convoluted. Add to that a month of inactivity for other reasons and there you have it, a quality roadblock.
Eventually I managed to claw my way back into development, because after all I was still confident in the game concept and also thanks to feeling guilty for not posting in the Sharing Saturday threads for far too long.
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First, the genetics system received a substantial overhaul to make converting an object's genetic trait into available actions way less messy.
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Second, more basic game functionality was added, e.g.: inventory.
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Third, two classes of virus were added including ability to infect cells and propagate their RNA.
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Fourth, the game changed its underlying engine from
Tcodtobracket-lib. -
Fifth, in an effort to vastly improve accessibility, the UI was enriched with complete mouse support.
All of this was interspersed with gratuitous refactoring to keep the codebase as neat and tidy as possible.
The experience of both extremes; getting stuck for long durations vs highly productive bursts of development have taught me to keep my expectations realistic and strike a careful balance. This is the most difficult task in game development for me personally: constantly managing my expectations and balance between getting too cocky and drowning in self-doubt. Being confident enough in my ideas and skills to have a vision for the game in mind, but at the same time seting small achievable goals to not get stuck in overengineering huge features at a time.
As much as improvements were made to engine, codebase and content in 2020, as much playtesting had been criminally neglected so far. This is where 2021 begins: catching up on the bug hunt and refining the control flow between all subsystems in the game.
The two big goals of 2021 for Innit are 1. completing alpha development and 2. creating an online presence for the game.
Targeted alpha features:
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enemy class virus, able to infect cells and force them to replicate virions
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enemy class bacteria, attacking and attempting to destroy cells
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an immune system that needs the player's help and/or helps the player
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a story mode or at least intro that explains to the player who they are supposed to be and what the goal of the game is
A stretch goal would be adding localisation to further push accessibility. I can write the english and german language versions of the game by myself.
Creating an online presence in form of a development blog, gameplay footage on youtube and so on is a vehicle for me to explore the documentation, marketing and user communication aspect of game development.
to try and find people that are interested enough in Innit to give the alpha version a go. This involves creating a blog around the game as well as announcing it on my personal social media. Ideally I would find some biology-oriented reddit communities that might be interested too and could provide support for the scientific background of the game.
innit wiki