Judi-n-Lyle Devlog - 005
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Thanks for joining me again on my journey through game dev on Judi-n-Lyle. I have spent the last few weeks adjusting back to society and reality as the new year starts and I return back to my job. However, I’ve been focusing on leaving time aside varje dag for me to think about my game and journey in some capacity. Along with learning a new language and keeping up with the daily life of chores and taking care of the doggies, maintaining the motivation for a large solo game dev project can be challenging. I have taken the approach in this new year to maintain focus on the four things most dear in my life right now, ordered by importance.
- Spending genuine connection time with my wife
- Taking care of my doggies and getting them on good stimulation walks to help with their anxiety
- Träna svenska
- Game Dev/Studio Dev
I am maintaining this list at my desk so I can read it everyday and see it often to continue that motivation and passion for the things that matter most to me. After rearranging our office, I now have the ability to post up more things on my desk that make it into my mind more and more. I have discovered that I am 1000000% influenced by the things I see every day and the more often I see them the more likely I am to do it. This is something specifically that has impacted me with the snacks in the cabinets or special sodas/drinks in the fridge. If everytime I open the fridge and I see the tasty snack staring at me, I am more inclined to eat it immediately. But if I put that tasty snack somewhere else (if it’s shelf stable) such as in the cabinet above the stove that I never open, then I am pleasantly surprised 3 months later when I open it and find the bottles of julmust from the holidays that I forgot about and I can reminisce on the holiday cheer once again.
Now I am taking this concept the other direction and focusing on putting things in front of me that remind me of things that I like to do. Otherwise I tap into my goldfish brain and forget about some of the things I enjoy doing just because I don’t see them around me often. I guess I never fully moved on past object permanence class. So there we have it, some little tricks I put out for myself that have really helped me stay on track with my goals and dial back my typical tendency to think I have to start a huge new project or hobby every 3 months even though I am still enjoying the things I am currently doing and experiencing in life.
SO - that was a little about me personally the last couple of weeks. I have actually spent time thinking up studio branding concepts to give a little more identity to myself and the game without it just being my personal name and identity. So here’s the fun little first announcement of something I am going to start working on as well in the background.
I setup a website for the studio right now that you can visit at djupskog.com. At the time of writing there isn’t much up there, but maybe by the time you’re coming around to reading this post there is something more of substance :)
So that has also taken up some of my time in the last couple of weeks as I have been having fun working on branding something other than just myself as an identity. We’ll see how far it goes, but for now you just need to start something at some point right? So why not now? That’s what encouraged me to setup the domain and get to work building something fun for myself. No pressure or high stakes (at least I am trying to keep it that way in my head), but if this becomes a viable thing for myself in the future then that would be really cool. But life is a journey and all I can do is take those steps in it everyday as I push towards something bigger. Thanks for joining me on that journey here in these dev logs.
You can also find Djup Skog Studios on instagram at @djupskogstudios and on youtube at @DjupSkog. We’ll see how much content actually ends up on those socials, but I figured just like I started this blog site and devlog cadence, the first step is just getting something setup. Otherwise, it feels like an immense uphill battle to get something setup AND then make content for it. But why not just take that first jump in to get the ball rolling and suddenly everything feels easier and easier to complete. There isn’t any reason to wait for the perfect timing or life to be in the perfect state to start building something for yourself and with that realization, I am defining an identity and continuing to build on that every day/week/month while I continue to see the amazing progress I have accomplished.
That sense of accomplishment for me is empowering especially through my language learning journey as I look back on words or phrases I was struggling with a few months ago to now being able to grok most of the shows I watch in swedish (with swedish subtitles just nu) and really enjoy it. How cool is that! And all it has taken for me is to chip away at it day by day. Somedays I have immense motivation and I listen to swedish podcasts for a few hours, do a full unit in Duolingo, read some content on 8sidor and watch something on SVTPlay. Somedays I just pull up Duolingo in the morning and do one lesson to appease the owl and don’t think about much swedish the rest of the day. But the repetition and consistency has allowed me to strike that balance in the back of my head with regard to How much do I have to be doing everyday for it to be ‘progress’?
With that, I have taken the same mindset to my game dev journey in the aspects of how I define progress on my game + studio. By shaping that mindset, I can rationalize the notion of “okay I can sit down for 30 minutes, open up Godot, put some basic sketches down for a new level and call it a night.” Whereas in the past, I built up this grandiose abstraction that the only time I have to work on my game is on the weekends, and well if that’s the only time I have available, then that weekend must contain the most “progress profit” so I need to establish 6-8 hours of time to make up for the time I “didn’t have” during the week. However this mentality had the opposite effect in which I no longer wanted to do any work on the game on the weekend because my definition became too excessive and unreasonable to accomplish. So, here we are today with a fresh outlook and perspective and now I feel bättre och bättre on my journey, progress, and overall desire for making games, with a healthy balance.
Oooookay, that was a little more than I intended to write on that subject matter, but I think it was cathartic. Back to the game dev. For Judi-n-Lyle, I have spent some time actually working towards some intial art assets for the intro cave scene that I put Judi into. Using some of my favorite games as case studies, I have been learning how to approach layering to give a sense of depth. In doing so not only has it brought so much life to the game, but I am better understanding choices I now get to make to influence the overall mood and atmosphere to strike the intention of what I want the player to feel.
For example, as I started playing around with this intro level, I have been defining that I want the player to feel what Judi would feel in that scenario. Completely alone, lost, scared, and hidden within the depths of the environment. Something I want to achieve (and will start working on here shortly), is an effect to trigger moments when Judi is frightened when walking throughout the cave and force the character controller to abruptly stop or change the speed of movement sporadically to invoke that feeling of sudden fear influencing how Judi interacts with the environment. She would certainly run into the street or other peril if she thought something was coming after her (like ya know a trash can or trash bag in front of someone’s house) in real life. And so that is the same tone I want to invoke in the player.
Intro Cave Concept Demo
Part of this journey in the first stages of the game is about Judi learning to overcome herself. So by the time she reunites with Lyle, she will be more confident and proud of the journey she accomplished to reach her brother again - and that she made that journey and struggled herself. The next stage will be about Judi and Lyle overcoming the fear they instill in each other as they work together to overcome obstacles and puzzles together while also battling the fear of being out in the world alone. I think this will be a really interesting challenge to accomplish for myself as I use my dogs as a case study. Trying to invoke the same emotion that I think my dogs are feeling to better understand them through the video game is a unique opportunity. I obviously do not know exactly what they are feeling, but I can at least attempt to create an atmosphere and tension that would invoke the same sense of fear in the everyday within the game.
Something else I am looking to achieve in the “boss fights” within the game is having all of the creatures initially cloaked in a similar shadowy ethereal semblance and then when the battle is over, reveal the reality that it was indeed some mundane thing. An idea of this is to have something such as a squirrel or a floating trash bag in the wind portrayed in an atmosphere to drive in tension and darkness, but afterward reveal it was in fact a trash bag and no danger was actually imposed. This is part of the theme of “overcoming yourself/fear” that I want to highlight especially as I see that in my dogs where they are hyper fearful of something that moved in the woods or odd sound outside, just to come and learn it was someone putting their trash outside or a pinecone fell on some leaves.
Okay, that was all for today. Thanks for taking the time to read through my thoughts and progress and I hope to see you again in a couple of weeks with something new to share! Feel free to follow the social media accounts and see other content tied to the development of Judi-n-Lyle and of course tune in next time for the nitty gritty journal experience.
Ha det så bra, så länge.
– Jacob