Devlog 01

This is the very first devlog, which I'm writing.

I would like to talk about the main idea of the game, that I just released, introduce tools that I used during development.

The main concept that came into my head was to learn something new and do creative work in opposite to the one I'm doing daily at work. Decision was easy, I like Godot, I like drawing and I like Christmas (I'm near 29, but still remember about old books and postcards with beautiful paintings, that parents were showing and reading me, when I was kid) so I decided to make some Christmas mobile game. I wanted to have fun with programming and with drawing - the two main points, that I planned to realize.

I'm going to show the main concept of the game. In the next posts I'll try to talk about drawing and programming.

Chapter 1. Game concept

I would like to play as Santa Claus who has to gather all gifts that are floating above the buildings.
I would like to see the random village that is similar to those I saw in books when I was kid. Instead of drawing assets by pen, I'll create pixel-art assets.

Chapter 2.  Movement

I decided to make movement as simple as possible. So why not to use only one finger for that? Let's go then!

Chapter 3. How to lose?

Fun is when you are winning, but it is strictly connected with work that you have to do to win. So we need some kind of obstacles.
When I decided to play as Santa flying above village, I came into idea, that natural obstacles will be:
- buildings

- clouds
- wind
- what about chimney's smoke? As we know, birds are using it and warm air to fly higher and then continue with slowly falling down... Yeah... smoke is good idea!

Here we are. Santa has to take care of four different obstacles. Now, let's make game much more eye-catching and enjoyable.

Chapter 4. Obstacles design and specifcation

In case of building, decision was easy... when Santa hit any kind of building - we have just to decrease number of life, that left. So classic.

In case of clouds - the creative one! Winter clouds are very cold (as well as summer ones) so let's make screen partially freeze when we hit cloud.

When Santa fall into wind let's increase his velocity, as some kind of 'obstacle' that could 'help' him to collide with clouds and buidlings.
It is a complex obstacle. 

Similar complex obstacle - smoke - when Santa fall into the wind just move Santa up - like a bird that is using warm air to fly up.

Four obstacles has been designed. I think that it is all for such small game. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

Regards,
Lukasz.

Game is available on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wkzgs.santa