Shoe House Goblin Devlog #1

Shoe House Goblin Devlog #1 – The MVI

SHG is basically a game of memory. You get to stack a bunch of boxes with randomly generated labels on them and then the labels are hidden. You receive one of the labels as an order and you have to play the standard memory game to find and deliver the box.

Here’s an outline of what I’m aiming for:

  • I want at least 10 levels for the game
  • To craft levels I must create these systems in the game:
    • A way to generate random labels. And I must be able to tweak the complexity of these labels.
    • A way to set different parameters like complexity of labels, number of orders, speed of orders etc for each level.
    • And Input. Ability to drag and drop boxes.
  • The levels must have a win and a lose condition. A win is when all orders are delivered. However I’m not sure about the lose condition. Maybe a certain number of wrong guesses will lose the game.
  • A “Goodwill” meter. This will represent the overall score of the game. It won’t do much in this version of the game except if you play exceptionally good then this will be high and if you play exceptionally bad then this will be very low.
  • The game must have some minimal graphics. Obviously an interior of a room will need to be shown with a hole in the ground for boxes and places for boxes to be stacked. I’m thinking of having a silhouette of the creature too and may be it’ll have long arms for grabbing the boxes.
  • Finally some minimal polish like background music, sound effects and UI like title, game over, level complete screens.
  • This is pretty much it. The above points are all I truly aim to complete. However these are some other features that’d be nice to have if I get some extra time:
    • A level select screen
    • More levels obviously
    • Story elements. Hmm?
    • Advanced difficulty. I have a lot of ideas for this

What I’ve outlined here isn’t going to be the most polished or the most feature rich game. However it’ll be a finished game. I’m aiming for a MVI (minimal viable interaction). I know this term from a GDC talk and I really like it. What meaning I take from it is that every iteration of the game must be a complete playable package in itself, even if its not at all like the final product you envisioned.

A slide from the above talk I mentioned

Anyway, next its time to code some systems. I’ll be discussing what I have accomplished and maybe discuss the story of the game?