The Plan

Introduction

This journal is to document my attempt to make a game.

I have never made a game before. I have dabbled with things like opengl, directx and XNA in the past but never completed anything substantial. In fact I don't think I've ever finished a software project. I figure if I keep this online journal, maybe it will provide the necessary pressure during those low motivation periods to keep going.

My motivation for making a game is to get better at it. My theory is to start small with something that will challenge me at my current ability level without being impossible.

The game I am planning on making is a Nethack style game - a graphical tile-based RPG. The view will be down from above so it will look 2D. Fundamentally you have an inventory and you can go off exploring and looting some dungeon and surviving by killing monsters and leveling up. I have some ideas that will make the gameplay a little different, but initially I want to keep it simple.

That's the most important rule: keep it simple. So it will be single-player only, avoiding networking. I am going to try and build it "agile", getting everything implemented at a very basic and boring level first so that there will be a "game" very quickly, and then add the details later. Eg don't waste five weeks making dozens of super cool monsters with powerful AI. Instead spend a day making a zombie with AI that's dead simple, then move on to maybe adding simple sound to the game and then adding a simple inventory UI. Five weeks later you have a broad but basic game, rather than just a map filled with 51 varieties of monsters.

In the past I have used c++ and opengl, but for this project I will be using C#/XNA because I find development in C# a lot faster.