I don't have too much to report this week as I have been working on refactoring code in preparation for a few exciting features. You might blame this on feature creep, but that's fine with me. The time system is working great but it lacks one important feature, a calendar! I figured if I wanted to really make a survival game worthy of the term, I should not skimp and go all-in with 4 seasons. I believe I have the foundation already laid for snow accumulation and tracks in the snow (for the tracking skill of course). If I am going to do all that, I really needed to dive into seasonal variations for each of the 19 trees in the game. I managed to work on the maple tree first as I was really excited to see what the variations of spring, summer, and fall would look like. Plus, something I have dreaded, stripping off the leaves to see the wintery naked maple tree, turned out to not be as bad as I thought it would be. Here is a preview of the work which I hope will be good enough for production because I doubt I will have time to come back to trees again. Keeping it short and to the point, here is the Maple as it will grow and change with the seasons of Survive And Thrive.
Happy New Year to all of you. Before I return to my day job tomorrow I thought I would do a short post and show a video on the progress made during my vacation time. Believe it or not, working on Survive And Thrive is an enjoyable way to spend some of my time off.
You might be wondering about my vision and goals for this game. In any worthwhile endeavor one has to have goals or else there is no long-term purpose or destination. I do have goals for Survive And Thrive and my vision is a fairly lofty one. However, my wife is careful to say it does not matter to her if I reach those goals or not. I know why she says that. She doesn't want me to feel obligated to her to finish this project. She wants me to enjoy the process and if it comes to fruition, great. But if not, that is ok with her. I appreciate her attitude and her desire to remove guilt that could come from not finishing this game. After all, the ratio of games started to games completed is probably somewhere around 1000 to 1. I knew this going into the project. I also know that there are a dozen things that could happen to derail the work that might be completely out of my control. But I look at it this way: Does someone cancel a road trip because there is a possibility of a break-down or an accident or bad weather? No, the trip gets planned and executed with the hope none of that happens. The same is true for this work. I have a vision for this game and purposes for investing my time and energy. I am intent on reaching my destination.
So what do these goals look like? Obviously from the title, I am making a survival game. But the definition of a survival game in 2021 is far different than it might have been fifteen or twenty years ago. When the word "survival" is used today to describe a game, inevitably gamers think zombies and the apocalypse. Scenes of hopeful survivors scavenging for food, weapons, armor and shelter set the backdrop of most survival games these days. I think that aspect of the survival genre is well represented. I have absolutely no desire to add Survive And Thrive to that mix. There will not be a single zombie in this game. The world will not be torn apart or ravaged by some virus or plague. The player will not have to hide at night from unnatural dangers, nor scavenge during the day through a desolate landscape. I want this game to be different from that. Survive And Thrive will be a game about survival skills and living off the land set in the context of a wild and beautiful wilderness that is procedurally generated and alive.
When I think of survival in a wilderness environment, many things come to mind that illustrate it. I think of mountain men in the American wildernesses of the 1700's and 1800's. I think of trappers, pioneers and homesteading families facing the real dangers of an unknown land and a hard life. When I think of survival skills, I think of foraging for berries, fruit, mushrooms and worms. I think of hunting, fishing, trapping, making fire, cooking, camping, constructing, and living practically off the land. I think about television shows like Les Stroud's Survivorman that teaches primitive skills and coping with the unknowns. I think about the wildly popular unspoken talents of the young man who produces Primitive Technology on YouTube and being able to make shelters, baskets, pottery, ovens and forges. I think of the natural dangers of predator animals that roam the wilderness: bears, wolves, mountain lions, and even bison. I think of the seasons with their varying temperatures, staying warm or cool and surviving natures fury as well as physical sickness, disease, and treatment of injuries. These are the survival aspects I am considering.
Thriving comes later as experience lends to a build-up of skills necessary to plant a garden, prepare hides, tan leather, carve wood, make pottery, build cabins, smokehouses, chicken coops, barns, and blacksmith shops. Also, trading furs and other goods with NPC's in small villages for things the player may not be able to make like steel traps and horseshoes. Perhaps I will be able to work in gun powder, smooth bore muskets and pistols in addition to bows, traps, swords and axes. There really is so much to consider in the time period I am looking at. While I am focusing on the general life of the 1700-1800s, I am not going to venture into the politics of those times, namely, the Native Americans and their struggles with the White Man. My great-great grandmother was Cherokee and I am not insensitive. It is just that a game is a game and politics are politics and I don't want my game to be a venue for that discussion. Rather, I would like to simulate the earlier times when everyone was mostly cordial and friendly and the frontier was big enough for encroachment to not be a concern. I am not striving for historical accuracy by any means. The time period will be a source of inspiration only. I haven't decided yet whether the natural tendencies of sinful man will be represented in the NPC population, such as robbers, cattle-rustlers, murderers and vigilantes. If it were, that would be several versions beyond a release so I am not going to focus on that at all.
Now that I have my feet wet in Unity and can actually see a path to my goals, I am very excited to proceed with development into this second year. This is not a sprint, though I will have many of them to work through (pun intended). This is a marathon of creativity and ideas that I hope to weave into a tapestry of fun and challenging gameplay mixed with perhaps some practical knowledge. I have no way of knowing what the end looks like or how long it will take me to get there, but this is my vision nonetheless.
I want to end this post with a short video showing some of the latest development of the game. Feel free to leave comments on it and anything else. If my vision is something you might be interested in, I would like to hear about it.
