"There is never enough planning, but sometimes you gotta start" -Someone somewhere I can't remember. I personally using Obsidian as a software to help me plan stuffs. I only need 3 things, logging, planning, tasks list. Though it's not the best QoL out there but it's free and covered everything I ever need to work on paper. Project management is crucial in every kind of projects, the larger it is the more you need to have good project management. I just started my new project too(because my previous projects only limited to tech demo and prototype). Today I started writing the synopsis for the story which will be the main narrative of my game. Since my game will be linear action game, I won't need to have advanced storytelling or sophisticated stories. I'll focus on the combat part for this matter. Though I said that, what I really focused on was optimizing my workflow in order to reduced my workload. At first I'd have to work on 121 models in order to have my full commercial game. Now I'd only need to work on a few of them, so I could spend more time to improve the overall qualities. Then for the combat mechanics. For any amateurs, they'd just use time and rely on physics to make the game looks good, since that's how the courses taught us. But since I'm using unreal, there is a feature call "Animation notify" which will allowed me to trigger any functions once the animation hit this point. Therefore most of my combat mechanics would relied on the animations which will make things more precise. It's interesting that we kinda have similar starting point for our projects. I want to see how long would it take you to get something done enough to show the world what you've been working on. I tried to work on more visual side before taking a dip in the system during the GDTV jam 2024 which I'd been doing until last week(the jam ended last week). I think it's kinda work. Here is the link to my game in case you're interest in what I'd been making. There is a gameplay video on the game page too, so you don't need to install windows or download the game to see what's going on inside the game. drakosea.itch.io/abyssonance Enjoy working on your game.
Ha ha, you are so right on that, sometimes you do have to start! I'm trying to be more of an archeologist than an architect, do instead of plan. I think the planning is going to help me a lot with focusing on what I should be doing when I'm not working my day job (which is not easy). I'm doing next, I've been sick this week, so I was using pencil and paper to sketch out some rough level designs from the sofa. I'm hoping to do more digital versions this weekend. I'd heard some good things about Obsidian. I had considered using it, I really like the nodes visualisation approach, so I may go back to using it. There's an integration with Notion that would be cool to explore. That's awesome that you've started a new project. I'd be keen to see how you get on and the progress you make. I'd also like to hear more about your workflow optimisation. That's pretty cool that you're taking on some of those features to do interesting stuff with them. So, I'm actually hoping to get things out for testing relatively quickly (first elements over the summer I'm hoping). I am going to talk about how I'm going to do that in a future video, I hope it's a pretty unique idea and approach, but I'm probably wrong. I had a look at your itch.io page and it looks pretty cool, I really like the world you've created, the lore and backstory is really cool. I'll definitely keep an eye on what you're working on!
@@TheInfiniteInkwell There is no need to be unique. Just make strong foundation and it'll have your flavors even without your consent. As for me, I'd been on having 'testing builds" for quite a long time, too long tbh. Here is my idea of helping you approach in making your first step in your project [ ruclips.net/video/O89kQLrv06M/видео.html ] About the workflow optimization, it's like understanding how turn on this valve will make water flow out of this hydrant. So I just work around it to make it served the purposes I have and simply reduced my overall workload. I think it's a matter of understanding in what I need to do rather than some tricks. Many people would develop their own frameworks to help them reduced workloads once they established their understandings in the workflow. I think you'll be able to do it soon, and since you're now awared of this fact it'd allowed you to reach the conclusion much faster than me and all those people whom didn't know about it.
You shouldn't call this first layer "Componets" are compents are special types of classes in programing, and if you ever would want to use those classes in your game you will get yourself confused quickly. For me I don't plan, I crate things as I go along, I tryied plaing with Notion, and I just spend time only planing in the end.
Thanks for sharing. I think that was just me overthinking things. I'll probably rename them further down the road. I wanted to avoid the "Epics" title because I've always thought it was a bit much, and given they're all the same type of thing for my groupings, that's how I got to components. Ha ha, yeah you can get stuck in a rut with the planning element for sure. I have in the past with other projects and elements of my life, but I'm feeling more optimistic with this now.
Excited to follow your Godot journey! I think it's clear that you have experience in this kind of planning and managing and that's really cool. I personally use Obsidian rather than Notion, but I have used Notion before in the past and it's a great as well. For my personal planning method, I do have a game design document, and I have a list of Must-Have things listed out. One such is that the game must be moddable, which then affects on how I build stuff in the future and I have to always keep that in mind. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how the systems of the game work, such as the inventory, the quest sytem, and others. I have also researched the addons that I might use, such as Dialogic, which also affect the way I'll be building my game. I also have an idea of the overall world map. The individual levels, aside from test levels, I'll do last (I'm not quite yet there, although I do have a lot of ideas that I have not written down). This order of thinking is nice in my opinion, because then when I get down to building the actual content, I know what is possible and what is not, and I think that will give me both the freedoms and limitations that allow me to be creative. That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with starting from the level design and progressing from there either, I think that it will be good to gain momentum and to learn gradually as you go. I think one thing you might want to think about is how to translate these higher level concepts in your Notion in to actual code components. There is a great video by Godoteers titled "Godot Components - how to structure a game into manageable parts (Beginner/Intermediate)" that could be really helpful in this. Also, since you mentioned that you plan on including a lot of minigames, I think Godot is a really good choice of an engine for you. The scenes and nodes architecture (where scenes can also be nodes) should really help with that goal.
Hey Phantasen! I'm new to the game development scene. I started with rpg maker mv but quickly outgrew the restrictions and wanted something more so like this channel I went through several engines before discovering Godot! I've been learning Gd script well coding basics (functions, Variables, data types ect) I'm curious and have a few questions if you don't mind! How did you get started in game dev? Did you learn coding from scratch online or did you go to school for it? I have no coding experience or background whatsoever so it's kind of hard to understand everything at once. How far along in your game dev journey are you? Like how long have you been making games? Last question sorry lol, Since I have no experience in game dev and am struggling a little bit with more advanced things like Arrays and dictionaries what learning path do you recommend? I'm just curious of how you got started so I can gather as much information about how other people have overcome the hurtles of the early learning stages! Sorry to bother you with so many questions! Just looking to make some new friends who are interested in game development as none of my friends have any interest in it sadly!
@@DeavtheDev I have been doing gamedev as a hobby on-and-off for five years or so, but my current game is the first one I'm developing in a serious manner and not just for fun. Programming is my day job though, so I have plenty of experience on that front (and it's probably the reason why I like to concentrate on systems, like I mentioned in my first post). I learned coding from scratch online, I did not go to school for it. As for learning programming on your own, I think one key thing is to just pick projects that interest you. Programming is a skill like any other, and the longer you spend with it, the more you learn. So choose projects that motivate you to keep at it and learn. For me these projects were things that helped me automate tasks in my job (which back then was manual software testing, not programming). If you are interested in going this route, for beginners I recommend a book called "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Like the name suggests, it's about python, not GDScript, but since the syntax of GDScript is Pythonic there is a lot of crossover. It is a book that has a lot of real life examples of things you can do with basic programming. It is freely readable online as well. Of course, games can be motivating too. There is a lot of great tutorials here on youtube. I haven't watched many since I already feel pretty comfortable with GDScript due to knowing python, but I know both Brackeys and Godotneers have beginner tutorials on it, and they are good teachers. I think it's good that you are focusing on things like data structures at the moment. Programming is about taking in data as an input, and processing it to produce a desired output. Datatypes are the basic building blocks that are involved in all stages of that process. On a higher level, one of the core skills of a programmer is to be able to break down complex tasks in to series of smaller tasks that can be conceptualized and then written for the computer. Because of that it is good to have a firm grasp of the basics, since in the end you want to chop down the problem to its basics as well. And as a general advice, don't be afraid of trying things and looking for solutions on the internet. Even the most advanced programmers are googling for things every day (even relatively basic things!), and almost every one in working in IT has some sort of impostor sydrome from time to time. Things can often seem impossible to understand at one point, only for everything to fall in place after wrestling with the problem first and then getting a good night's rest. I hope this was useful, and happy coding! :)
Thanks so much for your advice! I had looked at Obsidian before, I really like the nodes, however I opted for something I was far more familiar with. I do know there is a native integration between Notion & Obsidian, so I may explore that further down the road. I love your approach to making your game and the moddable element is a brilliant idea. I'd be keen to get some updates as you go, is there anywhere you're posting them? That was my entire intention for my approach, I can learn from basics and iterate as I go. I'm expecting to have to do a fair bit of refactoring as I get to late stage development, but it'll all be learning and I'm hoping to build my own repository of reusable code, to help keep that more manageable. I will check out that video for sure. Anything is going to be helpful for a newbie like myself - thank you. Whilst I didn't talk about it in my engine decision video, I do think that architecture is going to be incredibly useful to me. Where I've worked with web devs in the past they've spoken about some frameworks which have used a similar kind of pattern, so I think this makes things a little easier for me to get my head around. I'm hoping the mini games will be fun as well as add engaging elements for players. Thanks again for sharing your experience and supportive comments.
Planning is a very good thing to do. What I think that you may find is that the tasks take longer than you may expect. But pushing to get an MVP out is good.
Oh 100% that's what I'm expecting. I think the build and configure definitely will. I'm also expecting to need to add follow up tasks for additional functionality - past the basics. For example - initially the apple will disappear upon collection, but then later I'll need to add any scoring or inventory elements to it, but that'll be "additional functionality". But having an MVP where a player can pick up an apple and continue playing with no issues is where I'm starting from. I'm hoping to let people test small pieces semi-frequently.
Another great video! We had the same issues going from engine to engine from gamemaker to Godot! Cool to see you on the same journey! Keep up the great work
Just a heads up, Godot is replacing the TileMap node with a TileMapLayer node in v4.3. It might be a good idea to make your game in 4.3 beta to be safe, although they say as long as you're not programmatically modifying the tilemap it should be straightforward to port your old tilemap to the new node type. Just letting you know!
I remember GameFromScratch covering this the other day. I think he said they were deprecating it but not removing it right away. But you are right, its probably is a good idea to future proof your project.
Thanks for sharing. I saw this, there's talk of 4.3 coming out in the next month or so, I watched some content on what the change means and I actually think it's great. It brings it more in line with how everything else works - but I do realise that's controversial.
Don't make the game yet make systems, if you think you need a NPC dialogue system look at options like ink or similar or even make your own, look at your UI as a system, look at your movement system etc then you can bring them together to make the game.
This is true for when you are an experienced dev, and you want to make a complicated game. But for starting put, with something simple (Like in a game jam), I don't think this is the way.
I'd be a bit careful about over planning here. It can be useful to have some planning, but a lot of this seems over the top for the size of your project. Personally, I wouldn't bother with tags, priority, or estimates unless you are working in a large team, as you'll already know this info by being involved in development. And even in a large team, I don't like time estimates, because they are super hard to get right. If you find your programmers are consistently hitting estimates, they are probably either massively inflating them, or incurring tech debt to keep up. I think some of these tasks may also be a bit too granular. Like, do you really need 4 tasks for an apple pickup? I can't see how there would be enough complexity for that. I think its great that you're trying something new, I just don't want to see you get stuck in the planning stages. Good luck!
Agreed. Planning should drive progress, not slow it down, and I do think this level of planning might be leaning towards the slowing it down side. I also think the way some things are broken down is a bit overcomplicated. In my mind, the subtasks for the apple should be (1) create apple sprite (2) create basic scene (3) create animations (4) add pickup behaviour, and that's about it. But in the end, this is all part of the journey and I'm sure he will adjust his strategy as the project progresses.
Thanks for sharing. I actually am inclined to agree with you. I was so hesitant to add priorities, estimates, etc. I'm probably not going to need them. Because of how I'm used to working with teams, I'm used to having that sort of thing in there, so it was out of habit other than necessity. I think I'll likely remove them. Estimates split people, I tend to be pretty open with my teams with them, and I use retros to understand if we are sizing things right on a semi-regular basis. I'm ok in getting sizing wrong if we learn from our mistakes and can adapt over the longer term. Yeah some of these are quite granular on purpose, mostly because I can definitely see myself missing things, purely by accident. It's not necessarily about the complexity but the accountability - if that makes sense. I know I can get distracted by the shiny exciting task that's next, so I'm hoping this will help keep me on the straight and narrow. Well we're pretty much done with planning for now, I'm going to be adding bits intermittently throughout, much as I would for a team of devs. I'll have elements of "plan" and "do" rotate across each week. In fact, I already started working on pen and paper artwork concepts this week. Thanks so much for your kind words and advice, I really appreciate it.
I actually think we're probably on a similar wavelength here. I think I'm just nesting some of them together, which may be a mistake. I will definitely adjust if I find it's not working. But thanks for sharing your thoughts, this will certainly take some refining over time. I mapped my steps and expected activities to the subtasks you suggested for a little context. Exploration and Ideation, defining the look of the apple, potential animations and behaviours and refining what the apple should be - will it decay over time, will the player take a bite out of it, what colour should it be, will there be different colours of apple or variations. The design & create stage is about creating all of the sprite variations and elements so they can be imported to Godot - (1 - create apple sprite) The build and configure is building it in Godot, with its animations and behaviours in the game (2 - basic scene, 3- animation, 4 - pickup behaviours) - I probably shouldn't be nesting these together.
I'm afraid I've not made them public, they're a little messy and need some updating. They're just on my notion. I may indeed share them at a later date, but they're quite immature for now. I'll let you know when/if I make them available.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell no worries man! I'm completely new to Godot and don't know much about game development and thought they looked very good!! If you ever do release them I will definitely download them!!
You may or may not want to reconsider using Notion for for game development. Not only does Notion use AI, but they also have a rather strict content policy... To directly quote a section under "The following activities are prohibited:"; "Graphic and harmful content. Content that is graphically violent, obscene, sexually explicit, promoting self-harm, terrorist activity, misinformation, or posing a threat to the public is not allowed. This restriction applies to both private and public content." Now, I'm sure you're not building a game around any genre that might include any of these themes, buuut... Many popular game genres such as horror, grimdark, cyberpunk, etc... Basically falls under what's not allowed! Now I could be reading this wrong, but I would not recommend using Notion for any creative process right now. Perhaps @Notion could clarify this?
This will be entirely up to interpretation. I've read and written a lot of terms of service in the past and am pretty familiar with the recent updates here in the UK, and can safely say that this is not aimed at people using their platform for its intended purpose. This is more about people using the platform to share that type of content. You'll find the same restrictions on content on any platform that allows user generated content. I would be highly suspect of any platform that doesn't have these kind of terms of use, as it means that the platform could be used for nefarious means as well as genuine. They aren't designed to curtail creatives but to protect its users from harmful or illegal content and the business from inadvertently hosting harmful or illegal content. It is not a censorship issue. This is an incredibly important point to note. I feel completely free to put anything I want on Notion related to my projects - game related or otherwise. It's not legal advice, but my perspective having read and written a lot of these kinds of things in the past, both as someone offering a service and someone trying to interpret terms for a platform I want to use.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Well if you feel safe using the platform that's your choice. I just feel that the current content restrictions are rather excessive and somewhat vague. I'm rather unsure how Notion expects their customers to use the platform for anything other than basic office work and the tamest of content for kids... I may contact Notion about this myself, as I do enjoy using the platform.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Roc Steady (feat. Flo Milli) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HozPPyqW0dY/mqdefault.jpg)
"There is never enough planning, but sometimes you gotta start" -Someone somewhere I can't remember.
I personally using Obsidian as a software to help me plan stuffs. I only need 3 things, logging, planning, tasks list. Though it's not the best QoL out there but it's free and covered everything I ever need to work on paper. Project management is crucial in every kind of projects, the larger it is the more you need to have good project management.
I just started my new project too(because my previous projects only limited to tech demo and prototype). Today I started writing the synopsis for the story which will be the main narrative of my game. Since my game will be linear action game, I won't need to have advanced storytelling or sophisticated stories. I'll focus on the combat part for this matter. Though I said that, what I really focused on was optimizing my workflow in order to reduced my workload. At first I'd have to work on 121 models in order to have my full commercial game. Now I'd only need to work on a few of them, so I could spend more time to improve the overall qualities.
Then for the combat mechanics. For any amateurs, they'd just use time and rely on physics to make the game looks good, since that's how the courses taught us. But since I'm using unreal, there is a feature call "Animation notify" which will allowed me to trigger any functions once the animation hit this point. Therefore most of my combat mechanics would relied on the animations which will make things more precise.
It's interesting that we kinda have similar starting point for our projects. I want to see how long would it take you to get something done enough to show the world what you've been working on. I tried to work on more visual side before taking a dip in the system during the GDTV jam 2024 which I'd been doing until last week(the jam ended last week). I think it's kinda work.
Here is the link to my game in case you're interest in what I'd been making. There is a gameplay video on the game page too, so you don't need to install windows or download the game to see what's going on inside the game.
drakosea.itch.io/abyssonance
Enjoy working on your game.
Ha ha, you are so right on that, sometimes you do have to start! I'm trying to be more of an archeologist than an architect, do instead of plan. I think the planning is going to help me a lot with focusing on what I should be doing when I'm not working my day job (which is not easy). I'm doing next, I've been sick this week, so I was using pencil and paper to sketch out some rough level designs from the sofa. I'm hoping to do more digital versions this weekend.
I'd heard some good things about Obsidian. I had considered using it, I really like the nodes visualisation approach, so I may go back to using it. There's an integration with Notion that would be cool to explore.
That's awesome that you've started a new project. I'd be keen to see how you get on and the progress you make. I'd also like to hear more about your workflow optimisation. That's pretty cool that you're taking on some of those features to do interesting stuff with them.
So, I'm actually hoping to get things out for testing relatively quickly (first elements over the summer I'm hoping). I am going to talk about how I'm going to do that in a future video, I hope it's a pretty unique idea and approach, but I'm probably wrong.
I had a look at your itch.io page and it looks pretty cool, I really like the world you've created, the lore and backstory is really cool. I'll definitely keep an eye on what you're working on!
@@TheInfiniteInkwell There is no need to be unique. Just make strong foundation and it'll have your flavors even without your consent. As for me, I'd been on having 'testing builds" for quite a long time, too long tbh. Here is my idea of helping you approach in making your first step in your project
[ ruclips.net/video/O89kQLrv06M/видео.html ]
About the workflow optimization, it's like understanding how turn on this valve will make water flow out of this hydrant. So I just work around it to make it served the purposes I have and simply reduced my overall workload. I think it's a matter of understanding in what I need to do rather than some tricks. Many people would develop their own frameworks to help them reduced workloads once they established their understandings in the workflow. I think you'll be able to do it soon, and since you're now awared of this fact it'd allowed you to reach the conclusion much faster than me and all those people whom didn't know about it.
You shouldn't call this first layer "Componets" are compents are special types of classes in programing, and if you ever would want to use those classes in your game you will get yourself confused quickly.
For me I don't plan, I crate things as I go along, I tryied plaing with Notion,
and I just spend time only planing in the end.
Thanks for sharing. I think that was just me overthinking things. I'll probably rename them further down the road. I wanted to avoid the "Epics" title because I've always thought it was a bit much, and given they're all the same type of thing for my groupings, that's how I got to components.
Ha ha, yeah you can get stuck in a rut with the planning element for sure. I have in the past with other projects and elements of my life, but I'm feeling more optimistic with this now.
Excited to follow your Godot journey! I think it's clear that you have experience in this kind of planning and managing and that's really cool. I personally use Obsidian rather than Notion, but I have used Notion before in the past and it's a great as well.
For my personal planning method, I do have a game design document, and I have a list of Must-Have things listed out. One such is that the game must be moddable, which then affects on how I build stuff in the future and I have to always keep that in mind. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how the systems of the game work, such as the inventory, the quest sytem, and others. I have also researched the addons that I might use, such as Dialogic, which also affect the way I'll be building my game. I also have an idea of the overall world map. The individual levels, aside from test levels, I'll do last (I'm not quite yet there, although I do have a lot of ideas that I have not written down). This order of thinking is nice in my opinion, because then when I get down to building the actual content, I know what is possible and what is not, and I think that will give me both the freedoms and limitations that allow me to be creative.
That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with starting from the level design and progressing from there either, I think that it will be good to gain momentum and to learn gradually as you go.
I think one thing you might want to think about is how to translate these higher level concepts in your Notion in to actual code components. There is a great video by Godoteers titled "Godot Components - how to structure a game into manageable parts (Beginner/Intermediate)" that could be really helpful in this.
Also, since you mentioned that you plan on including a lot of minigames, I think Godot is a really good choice of an engine for you. The scenes and nodes architecture (where scenes can also be nodes) should really help with that goal.
Hey Phantasen! I'm new to the game development scene. I started with rpg maker mv but quickly outgrew the restrictions and wanted something more so like this channel I went through several engines before discovering Godot! I've been learning Gd script well coding basics (functions, Variables, data types ect)
I'm curious and have a few questions if you don't mind! How did you get started in game dev? Did you learn coding from scratch online or did you go to school for it? I have no coding experience or background whatsoever so it's kind of hard to understand everything at once.
How far along in your game dev journey are you? Like how long have you been making games?
Last question sorry lol, Since I have no experience in game dev and am struggling a little bit with more advanced things like Arrays and dictionaries what learning path do you recommend?
I'm just curious of how you got started so I can gather as much information about how other people have overcome the hurtles of the early learning stages!
Sorry to bother you with so many questions! Just looking to make some new friends who are interested in game development as none of my friends have any interest in it sadly!
@@DeavtheDev I have been doing gamedev as a hobby on-and-off for five years or so, but my current game is the first one I'm developing in a serious manner and not just for fun. Programming is my day job though, so I have plenty of experience on that front (and it's probably the reason why I like to concentrate on systems, like I mentioned in my first post). I learned coding from scratch online, I did not go to school for it.
As for learning programming on your own, I think one key thing is to just pick projects that interest you. Programming is a skill like any other, and the longer you spend with it, the more you learn. So choose projects that motivate you to keep at it and learn.
For me these projects were things that helped me automate tasks in my job (which back then was manual software testing, not programming). If you are interested in going this route, for beginners I recommend a book called "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Like the name suggests, it's about python, not GDScript, but since the syntax of GDScript is Pythonic there is a lot of crossover. It is a book that has a lot of real life examples of things you can do with basic programming. It is freely readable online as well.
Of course, games can be motivating too. There is a lot of great tutorials here on youtube. I haven't watched many since I already feel pretty comfortable with GDScript due to knowing python, but I know both Brackeys and Godotneers have beginner tutorials on it, and they are good teachers.
I think it's good that you are focusing on things like data structures at the moment. Programming is about taking in data as an input, and processing it to produce a desired output. Datatypes are the basic building blocks that are involved in all stages of that process.
On a higher level, one of the core skills of a programmer is to be able to break down complex tasks in to series of smaller tasks that can be conceptualized and then written for the computer. Because of that it is good to have a firm grasp of the basics, since in the end you want to chop down the problem to its basics as well.
And as a general advice, don't be afraid of trying things and looking for solutions on the internet. Even the most advanced programmers are googling for things every day (even relatively basic things!), and almost every one in working in IT has some sort of impostor sydrome from time to time. Things can often seem impossible to understand at one point, only for everything to fall in place after wrestling with the problem first and then getting a good night's rest.
I hope this was useful, and happy coding! :)
Thanks so much for your advice!
I had looked at Obsidian before, I really like the nodes, however I opted for something I was far more familiar with. I do know there is a native integration between Notion & Obsidian, so I may explore that further down the road.
I love your approach to making your game and the moddable element is a brilliant idea. I'd be keen to get some updates as you go, is there anywhere you're posting them?
That was my entire intention for my approach, I can learn from basics and iterate as I go. I'm expecting to have to do a fair bit of refactoring as I get to late stage development, but it'll all be learning and I'm hoping to build my own repository of reusable code, to help keep that more manageable.
I will check out that video for sure. Anything is going to be helpful for a newbie like myself - thank you.
Whilst I didn't talk about it in my engine decision video, I do think that architecture is going to be incredibly useful to me. Where I've worked with web devs in the past they've spoken about some frameworks which have used a similar kind of pattern, so I think this makes things a little easier for me to get my head around. I'm hoping the mini games will be fun as well as add engaging elements for players.
Thanks again for sharing your experience and supportive comments.
Planning is a very good thing to do. What I think that you may find is that the tasks take longer than you may expect. But pushing to get an MVP out is good.
Oh 100% that's what I'm expecting. I think the build and configure definitely will. I'm also expecting to need to add follow up tasks for additional functionality - past the basics.
For example - initially the apple will disappear upon collection, but then later I'll need to add any scoring or inventory elements to it, but that'll be "additional functionality". But having an MVP where a player can pick up an apple and continue playing with no issues is where I'm starting from. I'm hoping to let people test small pieces semi-frequently.
Another great video! We had the same issues going from engine to engine from gamemaker to Godot! Cool to see you on the same journey! Keep up the great work
Thanks so much!
@@TheInfiniteInkwell of course!! Excited to see you getting your project started!!
Just for future reference and in case you need to search it up this rest mode for the character your talking about is referred to as the "idle state"
Just a heads up, Godot is replacing the TileMap node with a TileMapLayer node in v4.3. It might be a good idea to make your game in 4.3 beta to be safe, although they say as long as you're not programmatically modifying the tilemap it should be straightforward to port your old tilemap to the new node type. Just letting you know!
I remember GameFromScratch covering this the other day. I think he said they were deprecating it but not removing it right away. But you are right, its probably is a good idea to future proof your project.
Thanks for sharing. I saw this, there's talk of 4.3 coming out in the next month or so, I watched some content on what the change means and I actually think it's great. It brings it more in line with how everything else works - but I do realise that's controversial.
Great video as always. (The video isn't shown in my subscriptions tab btw, you might've forgotten to set it).
You have to have the bell icon turned on and set to all. RUclips is notoriously bad at sending out notifications.
Apologies, that may have been my fault. I'll try to make sure it's in your feed next time ;)
Don't make the game yet make systems, if you think you need a NPC dialogue system look at options like ink or similar or even make your own, look at your UI as a system, look at your movement system etc then you can bring them together to make the game.
This is true for when you are an experienced dev, and you want to make a complicated game. But for starting put, with something simple (Like in a game jam), I don't think this is the way.
subbed and good luck on your journey
Thanks so much for coming on the journey!
I'd be a bit careful about over planning here. It can be useful to have some planning, but a lot of this seems over the top for the size of your project. Personally, I wouldn't bother with tags, priority, or estimates unless you are working in a large team, as you'll already know this info by being involved in development. And even in a large team, I don't like time estimates, because they are super hard to get right. If you find your programmers are consistently hitting estimates, they are probably either massively inflating them, or incurring tech debt to keep up.
I think some of these tasks may also be a bit too granular. Like, do you really need 4 tasks for an apple pickup? I can't see how there would be enough complexity for that.
I think its great that you're trying something new, I just don't want to see you get stuck in the planning stages. Good luck!
Agreed. Planning should drive progress, not slow it down, and I do think this level of planning might be leaning towards the slowing it down side. I also think the way some things are broken down is a bit overcomplicated. In my mind, the subtasks for the apple should be (1) create apple sprite (2) create basic scene (3) create animations (4) add pickup behaviour, and that's about it. But in the end, this is all part of the journey and I'm sure he will adjust his strategy as the project progresses.
Thanks for sharing. I actually am inclined to agree with you. I was so hesitant to add priorities, estimates, etc. I'm probably not going to need them. Because of how I'm used to working with teams, I'm used to having that sort of thing in there, so it was out of habit other than necessity. I think I'll likely remove them.
Estimates split people, I tend to be pretty open with my teams with them, and I use retros to understand if we are sizing things right on a semi-regular basis. I'm ok in getting sizing wrong if we learn from our mistakes and can adapt over the longer term.
Yeah some of these are quite granular on purpose, mostly because I can definitely see myself missing things, purely by accident. It's not necessarily about the complexity but the accountability - if that makes sense. I know I can get distracted by the shiny exciting task that's next, so I'm hoping this will help keep me on the straight and narrow.
Well we're pretty much done with planning for now, I'm going to be adding bits intermittently throughout, much as I would for a team of devs. I'll have elements of "plan" and "do" rotate across each week. In fact, I already started working on pen and paper artwork concepts this week.
Thanks so much for your kind words and advice, I really appreciate it.
I actually think we're probably on a similar wavelength here. I think I'm just nesting some of them together, which may be a mistake. I will definitely adjust if I find it's not working. But thanks for sharing your thoughts, this will certainly take some refining over time.
I mapped my steps and expected activities to the subtasks you suggested for a little context.
Exploration and Ideation, defining the look of the apple, potential animations and behaviours and refining what the apple should be - will it decay over time, will the player take a bite out of it, what colour should it be, will there be different colours of apple or variations.
The design & create stage is about creating all of the sprite variations and elements so they can be imported to Godot - (1 - create apple sprite)
The build and configure is building it in Godot, with its animations and behaviours in the game (2 - basic scene, 3- animation, 4 - pickup behaviours) - I probably shouldn't be nesting these together.
Also I asked before but lost the reply, do you have your godot notes anywhere for download? I'd love to download them to help me!
I'm afraid I've not made them public, they're a little messy and need some updating. They're just on my notion. I may indeed share them at a later date, but they're quite immature for now. I'll let you know when/if I make them available.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell no worries man! I'm completely new to Godot and don't know much about game development and thought they looked very good!! If you ever do release them I will definitely download them!!
You may or may not want to reconsider using Notion for for game development. Not only does Notion use AI, but they also have a rather strict content policy... To directly quote a section under "The following activities are prohibited:"; "Graphic and harmful content. Content that is graphically violent, obscene, sexually explicit, promoting self-harm, terrorist activity, misinformation, or posing a threat to the public is not allowed. This restriction applies to both private and public content." Now, I'm sure you're not building a game around any genre that might include any of these themes, buuut... Many popular game genres such as horror, grimdark, cyberpunk, etc... Basically falls under what's not allowed! Now I could be reading this wrong, but I would not recommend using Notion for any creative process right now. Perhaps @Notion could clarify this?
Agreed unless I am making a kids game. However I want complete artist freedom.
This will be entirely up to interpretation.
I've read and written a lot of terms of service in the past and am pretty familiar with the recent updates here in the UK, and can safely say that this is not aimed at people using their platform for its intended purpose.
This is more about people using the platform to share that type of content. You'll find the same restrictions on content on any platform that allows user generated content. I would be highly suspect of any platform that doesn't have these kind of terms of use, as it means that the platform could be used for nefarious means as well as genuine.
They aren't designed to curtail creatives but to protect its users from harmful or illegal content and the business from inadvertently hosting harmful or illegal content. It is not a censorship issue. This is an incredibly important point to note.
I feel completely free to put anything I want on Notion related to my projects - game related or otherwise.
It's not legal advice, but my perspective having read and written a lot of these kinds of things in the past, both as someone offering a service and someone trying to interpret terms for a platform I want to use.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Well if you feel safe using the platform that's your choice. I just feel that the current content restrictions are rather excessive and somewhat vague. I'm rather unsure how Notion expects their customers to use the platform for anything other than basic office work and the tamest of content for kids... I may contact Notion about this myself, as I do enjoy using the platform.
Notion is slow garbage, waste of time 😅