this was added somewhat retroactively [23.07] because i made this website today and have some backlog

Day 1 ✦ 7. July

wrote down my ideas & doodled some concept art for the npcs and main character
played around a lot with the dungeon generation part of this project, because that's really important, following an old tutorial got me most of the way there but failed me on the path carving between the rooms, leaving this for later
also made a very very basic tilemap blockout of what will become the village area using free assets

Day 2 ✦ 8. July

added a dialogue plugin to my game that will handle (hopefully) all the dialogue, shoutout dialogic
wrote down lore & location & monster ideas and such, generally just fleshed out the world a little more
slowly started working on my own tilemap to replace the aformentioned free assets
art is the focus for right now because that's kind of the only part i'm good at

Day 3 ✦ 21. July

big jump, i know, i was not entirely inactive during those 2 weeks, but i don't have much to show either, lots to say though:
[future coda note; i drank coke this day and you can really really fucking tell oh my god]

i decided i want to work, at first, towards a little demo of sorts for the game, just so i have something actually playable i can build on top, and something i can show people and maybe send to some playtesters
sadly for now this is going to be largely art, tilemaps, character design, sprite work, ui, all that, so it's very possible that updates will be relatively slow

i have also decided that i want the full game to have a time & seasons system, taking a fair bit of inspiration from harvest moon & stardew valley [like every other indie dev on the planet, i know, shut up ♥)
i'd like to have time based events (ie specific holidays) and also different enemies in dungeons depending on the daytime!
on that note, seasonal tilemaps are a plan too, this could in theory be used for puzzles kind of like how pkmn black/white did this, like fall adding a bunch of leaves in big holes that you can then walk over to reach places you maybe couldn't in spring?
i'll ponder it, it probably won't be used for any major stuff but some little secrets and trinkets would be nice i think
anyways, case in point i have today finished (or at least finished a draft of) the UI for the little day/time counter, or a mockup for it rather
i'll likely make one small and one large version depending on if the menu is popped up or not! UI design isn't my forte but it's fun and i can use my art for it so it makes me happby
the actual system for the time to count is not implemented yet but I may be able to do that in a little while, the seasons thing i have not touched yet, but i feel it won't be terribly hard... probably

i am also working on getting a git repo up for this so i don't actually have any oopsies in the near future
[late night edit: also edited & added some placeholder sprites, also added a pause menu w/ a working cursor, it can't select any of the options yet but that's for later]

Day 4 ✦ 22. July

tried and failed to get the time system to work and i am most likely redoing the cursor/pause menu thing because it's overcomplicated and i found a better way to do it that i understand more
kinda crashing from last nights productivity, everything hurts oh god oh help, taking it slow today
probably just gaming for the rest of the night and ocassionally doing some small stuff, maybe i'll finally sit my ass down and do the oryx design and some character building, character sheet would be sick
i did figure out an inventory UI that doesn't take 5 billion nodes though i am very happy about that, i just need to set up the new cursor so maybe it works? i don't really know how to do this yet
made some really good concept art for the sword/cursor and some pixel art sketches, also started working on figuring out a quest system & started on designing the tutorial dungeon (making this one manually)

Day 5 ✦ 23. July

made this website, hi :)
started working on the oryx's design, he silly
made a very cool mockup of what i want my save file selection menu to look like, then had a battle to the death with the label node because the text setting didn't want to work but i emerged victorious
made a small tilemap for what will eventually be part of the castle
i also bought a game that might teach me python better, here's hoping

Day 6 ✦ 25. July

a little stuck on something i didn't expect to be stuck on, I was planning on doing the art for the game first (ie tilemaps and stuff) so i have stuff to walk around on, but i'm a bit stuck on trying to figure out the sizing for it
top down 2d games like this one usually have relatively low sprite sizes anyways, and that's very chill, PMD itself is only like 32x32 with some ocassional x64 sprites added in for big boys, but:
1. that game is old and had some limitations by being on a very small screen comparative to a pc monitor
and 2. many of the characters are quadrupedal and many of the player characters just fit into an easy simple box, i want bipedal characters that would kinda benefit from having more pixels to work with if i'm gonna have to leave some blank space at either side to not make them super wide?

I don't really know what to do about this yet, likewise i'm kinda stuck on if i even *want* this to be pixel art too, but i think yes, like pixel art is one of the eras I really miss, it's just not something I do often and i'm a bit scared it'll look bad lol

Later today edit: Had a hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby-esque fight against my code for like 3 hours BUT I not only got the entire time system to work, but I also got the Seasons to work too! I just need the tilemaps now :) First thing crossed off the list lets fucking go!!

Day 7 ✦ 28. July

I GOT THE DUNGEON GENERATOR TO WORK WOOOO, turns out sitting my ass down and rewatching the entire tutorial after ive gained some more coding knowledge works wonders, it still needs some tweaking and a LOT of other work but the basic functionality of making a tilemap & generating the rooms and corridors works!

Day 8 ✦ 30. July

perhaps the last post for this month, I fleshed out the main characters design, they are now a wolpertinger instead of a mouse! a lot happier with their design now
i've also just done a lot more worldbuilding, character writing, fleshing out stuff, all that jazz, not a lot to show quite yet, the next big step thats gonna get me way further is doing tilemaps but im kinda putting it off
i've been doodling some interiors for the npc's houses though, lots of cool little story/characterbuilding stuff to be done there, it's been quite fun

also my leg itches :(