5/16/23

Time Worked: 2 hours, 15 mins

Today I worked on implementing animations. These kind of improvements are so dope. For example in the pic attached it shows the idle for holding a long gun. Pretty nice!

I'm so back and forth about what to do about this game. I really feel like it's just coming along really well. It's pretty fucking sweet if you ask me. I love the graphics and the guns and even the gameplay is honestly pretty fun. 

Maybe I should flex it harder. Maybe this could become a source of money? If I kept working. I mean I've been focused really hard on what I think is the right thing. I focused really hard on just one core mechanic - the run and gun shooting. And I think there have been just a slew of serious improvements that have made it pretty cool. And I have a zillion ideas that I KNOW would make it better.

Like I really really feel like if I were to just add one more layer of complexity for the player to interact with and I might have something here. I think turn-based strategy games are probably my favorite type... I'm basically thinking: if this is the main gameplay, how can I string the player along multiple plays?

What I mean is, in XCOM the main gameplay is the turn based combat. But all the recruiting, infastructure management, etc. is such a massive part of the game, it's what gives purpose to the turn based combat. I would never play XCOM without the strategy layer.

What I need for this game is something like that. I have what is at least a pretty neat top down shooter. I need a way to get the player invested in it for a long-term reason.

And I already have some ideas my brother and I had worked out. And maybe I don't even need to learn modeling.

I think the reason I feel like I should make a bunch of stuff is that I've read it and heard it everywhere.

But if I know I have more to go on... maybe I should explore that. I just need to do it very seriously if I am to do so. I could still do it the way I was thinking previously - put this game out as "done", when really it's not done at all, I'm just developing the strategy layer as its own "game". And I keep in mind that they will be connected.

And in the long run if I were to develop this game further, I could keep this as a free "survival mode demo". So the free game would just be survival which would still be fully supported and updated with new guns, etc. Maybe even new features specifically for survival. But I'd have to focus hard enough on the strategy layer for it to shine enough to be worth paying for. It has to massively enhance the shooter experience.

This could be much more... 

Also - as a bonus. Here's my first gun ever. Modeled after an AR obviously.