DEVLOG

Once I figured out the topic of my game (which was about AI and the environment), I started making draft art for the game. And since I've always had a thing for pixel art, I knew the style my game would be in and made my first character, the Budgie.

Just for fun, I decided to put it in a suit, and thought it looked pretty cool. So I made a few more characters, then started thinking about the world they would inhabit - And that is when the idea of Bird Corp was started to take shape.

After some time, I started making simple idle and walk animations, backgrounds, and other assets in order to bring the world of Bird Corp to life.

more birds!

first and second budgie iterations

more birds!

After making the basic assets and knowing that I want a corporate aesthetic, I began working on solidifying the game mechanics and storyline. I wanted this to be a game that was not just educational, but also fun and engaging. This involved designing relatable minigames, and meaningful NPCs to keep players invested in the world of Bird Corp.

After some research and seeing nothing but praise for Godot, I decided to use it as the game engine for Bird Corp. Godot is an open-source engine known for its flexibility and strong community, which meant plenty of resources available for learning.

I started by following online tutorials to make the basics, and made this simple player scene with idle and walk animations, and tileset, both with collisions.

However, when I wanted to make an NPC scene, I came to a realization. Since there will be multiple NPCs, I was considering how best to implement the player states and came across this implementation called State Machines. What it does is that it allows you to manage different states (like idle, walking, talking, etc.) in a more organized way. This was a game changer for me, as it made handling the various NPC behaviors much simpler, but also meant that I had to change the way player was implemented because I want to keep the code consistent. I had to keep searching and trying different tutorials since some did not work for my project or were not beginner-friendly. But after a few days of trial and error, I finally got it to work, and was a great learning experience.

Next was cutscenes and I think I was overcomplicating things by thinking too much about the best way to implement it, plus it was also tough finding a tutorial suited for my project. But after more trial and error, I finally got it to work which was a huge relief. I was mulling over this for a week, gave up and worked on something else, felt like I was hitting a wall and doubting if I could actually make this game. But when I got it to work, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and it reignited my confidence in finishing this game.

Other than cutscenes, I also had to figure out how I want to implement navigation in this game. Initially, I used the change to file scene method, but it was not suitable for my game.

In the beginning, whenever I've hit a roadblock, I would start doubting if Godot was the right engine for me, and if I should switch to something simpler with pre-built mechanics. But I realized that this is a common feeling among beginners, and that the key is to persevere and keep trying.

I also found that breaking down complex problems into smaller, manageable tasks helped me tackle them more effectively. This approach not only made the challenges seem less daunting but also allowed me to make steady progress.