I started by making Brakenwake - a low poly demo. It worked OK, and I made a playable dungeon but I was not happy with any of the graphics and didn't feel like continuing...
So, i wanted to turn this into an actual nice looking playable game. I chose Unreal Engine. The end game will likely be large if finished and contain may assets. Browser is just not a good fit for downloading a ton of assets. I imagine it will be a multi-gigabyte download, 50gb at least probably. A downloadable game makes much more sense for this.
Seeing as how I have no idea how proper game design is done and which steps to take first, I started with the storyline.
Last night I had a rough idea for what I wanted - I wanted to start off with insane abilities so the game actually does not start on earth but in your Skyborn Kingdom. This part will be last to design because I just want to get the main first zone done first.
I opened up the chatgpt app and used the voice function to simply record my thoughts and asked it to help me refine the plot.
The original idea involved Gods, and I felt it was too complicated, so I asked to refine it to something much more simple. I noticed that simple games do best. If you think about vanilla WoW, it is a super simple game without much of a storyline to even get you started. You have a cinematic to start with and then that's it, you're in the game killing stuff. There is not much of a strong storyline behind WoW. There's lore, if you pay attention, but the game doesn't really revolve around it so much. This give me confidence that complexity doesn't really matter. Keep it simple, give it a story and set the player on a mission.
After getting a rough idea for the start and end game play (you actually start at the end so you see where you'll end up eventually), I needed a map.
Together with ChatGPT we brainstormed the first zone. It follows the story.
As the hero, you are cast down to earth and you smash into the ground below creating a crater. This is the starting point.
Your goal is to simply go forward, there's nowhere else to go at that point.. you figure out what's ahead, level up, get a bit stronger.
I contained the first zone to just level 1-12, but in reality I don't know what will happen, it's going to be a huge balancing act. What you have in mind is not always what will turn out. Zone might be too big for 12 levels for example, in which case I could extend it to 19 perhaps.
To keep it sane, I limit the scope to just the first map. I will do my best to make it good, and stop there unless there's any interest for further exploration.
A game is not a map with a bunch of gear and monsters to slash. You need story, progression, missions, discoveries, all of the other senses to tie together the experience - sound effects, environment, background score if any, cinematics, voice acting. IT's quite a bit of work... and I am not even sure I can do it it all, but it's fun so who cares!
To keep things organized, I asked ChatGPT to put everthing into a work folder, and asked it to generate prompts for the main map and for each subzone of that map. I used the prompt to create the zone map (see attached). This is the starting zone only. One path, one mission: discover, progress and get to the Fallen Spire. What awaits you there? I have no idea... haha. Perhaps the first relic fragment.
That's where I am now, I paste reference images to Astra and it crafts the world for me. I'll go back and forth until it feels right - actually run through it to see how long it takes etc... and only then when the terrain feels right and we have sufficient diversity is when we'll start adding details - grass, waterfalls etc... I suppose that process will take a few weeks. While I decorate the zone I will also need to think about the encounters, and various storylines that might happen there.
It's not much yet.. just world shaping
