Developer's Diary #3

Since the last publication, in what seems like such a short period of time, many changes have occurred.
To maintain the content of the article. I think we need to start with the content.

Content:

• General information from the life of a developer

• Publishing a page on VKPlay

• How I see the game spreading.

• Steam

• Financial statistics

• Development of transport and fuel system

• Adding a mini map, compass and world map

• First dialogues and their types and purposes.

• Funny results obtained during the development process

• Multiplayer

• Conclusion

General information from the life of a developer

In my previous posts, I talked about how developing at home is not easy. It would seem that having found a way out of this and made a room for work from the balcony, everything led to the fact that in the end my wife and I separated, not because of the balcony, but mainly because of my lack of attention to her. The situation is bad.
All this information is more aimed at the fact that developing a game is not always fun and fervent with the desire to sell a million copies. Everything has its price and consequences.

Publishing a page on VKPlay

On June 7, 24, the PANGIT project page was officially published on the VKPlay site. In order not to violate the blog posting rules, I will refrain from third-party links to my project so as not to fall under the advertising format. I think that if you want, you can find it in a search engine by name.

How do I see the game spreading?

As my grandfather liked to say. “The chicken is in the nest, and you’re already running around with a frying pan.” I think that you need to think about this and the sooner the better you can plan, make and take into account possible mistakes, so I don’t see anything bad in this.

Preliminary economic model of game distribution.
– The game will be released as a paid version of the alpha version in which the 1st chapter of the storyline will be available.
Initially, the game will be distributed only on VKPlay at a reduced price.
– Within 3 months I will plan a free update and release the 2nd chapter, the price of the game will be increased by approximately 15/25% for new users, users who purchased previously will receive all chapter expansion updates for free.
But I feel that at the beginning, I will be busy frantically fixing bugs and everything that I overlooked.
– In another 3 months, the 3rd chapter will be released, the price will also be increased.

Eventually: Who at the start buys the game at the minimum price and not the full game. This will be more aimed at supporting the development of the game, in any case, regardless of sales, the game will be completed to the end and even if only one copy of the game is sold, then everything was not in vain. I chose this approach, right or wrong, my goal is to make a game.
Thus, this model seems quite fair in relation to the players. Do not sell the game at full price when the project is not completely ready. And those who believed at the beginning will get the game cheaper than the planned price.
In total it is planned to make 4-5 chapters in the game.

STEAM

Upon completion of the release of chapters and completion of the development of the alpha version and transition to beta, localization will be made into other languages ​​and the release of the game in STEAM will be planned. But by then I will look at the situation, maybe it will not be possible to publish on Steam from the Russian Federation, this must also be taken into account.

Whether I like VKPlay or not, I, as a developer, am grateful that I have the opportunity to post my work on their site. Which solves many technical issues and essentially saves a lot of resources regarding the distribution of the game.

Financial statistics

As of today, 06/16/24, financial statistics of the game development.

Development time: ~9 months.
Costs amount to 282 thousand rubles. (+70271) Costs for materials, assets, etc.
In fact, next time, the figure will be revised, since in the end I bought a number of resources that will not be used in the project and the fact that I made a mistake should not be taken into account objectively, since it is not used. But now we can imagine the volume of purchased resources; perhaps some of them will someday be used in other projects.

Advertising and promotion: 0 rubles
Number of wishlists in VKPlay: 23
Publishing a VKPlay page: 7.06.24
Employees: 1 (i).
Offers to participate in the project: 3

Development of transport and fuel system

This video demonstrates a car, motorcycle, fuel system. Animations require more attention, but everything is already working as it should.
The controllability of a vehicle depends on the type of vehicle and the surface on which it is traveling. For example: A mountain bike will handle better on a dirt road.

Adding a mini map, compass and world map

At the moment, please do not pay too much attention to the quality of the textures, since in parallel there is also optimization of the project where I am working with texture resolution and shadows. Interfaces will be visually improved and refined

First dialogues. Their types and purposes.

Yes, the dialogues were written by me, voiced by a neural network, I agree that they require more attention and improvements. Perhaps I will look for outside help in this direction.

In terms of programming, the dialogues are made very conveniently and quickly without much effort, they can be edited and changed. The voice acting is easy to change; an audio track is added to each rectangle and you’re done.

In the video I want to draw your attention to the format of the dialogues that I wanted to show. Teaching the player and directing him what to do next will be in communication with the NPC. And with leveling up your reputation, completing tasks and moving along the storyline. Dialogues will change and reveal new tips or tasks.
For example: The gunsmith speaks rudely enough when the player's reputation is above level 10. The dialogue itself will be different with new information, and the gunsmith himself will be more helpful. This is one of the ways I plan to convey a sense of progress in the game. (Maybe my colleagues will find this idea useful).
Personally, when I played games, I missed the fact that when I came to the starting location, the NPCs still tried to teach me what they had already seen, or did not communicate with me at all, and as a result, this place became useless and lifeless.

Funny results obtained during the development process

At first, the character got on a motorcycle and his body disappeared, and everything he was wearing remained in the air. Cars are much simpler than motorcycles, although motorcycles are based on the car template.

Multiplayer

The entire project has support for playing online and running a dedicated server. Because of this, the project is being created much longer than it could have been done. But initially the game will be released as a single player. If the project has a sufficient number of users, then after the completion of the development of the storyline (single mode). A separate multiplayer map will be made for cooperative play in the world of PANGIT and configured for online play.

Landmarks.
During the game development process, I focus on games such as DAYS GONE and State of Decay. This is how motorcycles appeared and the development of the base. Sometimes you really want to add zombies, but no. But corporation robots as enemies will fit well into the world and lore.

Conclusion

This paragraph is actually the place for my message to you. Here I want to express my gratitude to you, at least for reading up to this point. I will be glad to receive comments, questions, etc. peace to you)