My next indie game!

July 12, 2024 in
News

With the launch of my first game, Enigmarble, it was time to move on to making my next game. To get straight to the point, my game idea is a 3D game in the 4X, RTS, strategy genre. I’m using the Unity game engine to make my games.

Inspirations

I might be showing my age here, but I have fond memories of playing these games when I was a kid:

  • Caesar 3
  • Pharaoh and the Cleopatra DLC
  • Age of Empires 2
  • The Settlers 3
  • Civilization 3 and later 4 (IV)

These are the kind of games I prefer playing, and thus it was natural for me to create a game similar to these.

However I want to add some twists to it, so I’m not just making “another out-of-date isometric grid-based building strategy game”. I’m trying to combine a building/4X strategy game with survival. The last of which inspired from another favorite game of mine: Minecraft. In my game idea you control a player character, exploring, gathering resources, fight some enemies, and build bases.

It’s not going to be as creative intensive as Minecraft where you place each individual block to make up your buildings, but think more like Factorio with less focus on the factory aspect.

The main game idea

My current idea is multiple procedurally generated worlds to explore – similar to the different dimensions in Minecraft (overworld, nether, end), each of which has unique terrain generation, aesthetics, and resources. You need to gather enough resources to be able to travel to each dimension, which will contain what you need to progress to other dimensions and in the game overall. Some dimensions will have enemies you need to fight or defend your base, and others will have other features I’ve not yet decided.

You will by placing buildings be able to automate resource gathering and crafting, while also achieving unique game features, through NPCs. My focus is on not making a game where you deal with NPC micromanagement; always making sure they are happy, fed, live somewhere nice, and having to control and command every little thing they should do. Instead it will be much more automatic, leaving you to focus more on other things.

I am also putting emphasis on replayability, so the maps will be procedurally generated, probably with an option to tweak certain properties.

Current progress

First look at my prototype

Ever since the launch of my previous game, I’ve been tinkering with different prototypes and concepts. This is a complex game with lots of systems that need to be designed and working together. Not to mention it will be a UI heavy game so I definitely need to look into how to make a solid system for this in Unity.

My current goal is to design and implement a solid architecture of the required systems, and creating a MVP with the main gameplay loop. However I’m a programmer and not a designer, so unfortunately it currently doesn’t look very good. And I know that visuals in games matter- a lot! But I have another reason to delay focusing on the visuals: I don’t yet have a theme or backstory. I don’t even have a name for my game yet! Without this it’s difficult to design and work on the visuals – as there’s a big difference in RPG games like Diablo, versus a strategy game that takes place in space in the future. (My game will not be a space-themed game).

This is a game I’m really excited for, and want to see through! Unfortunately I feel like a baker showing you a bowl filled with flour, sugar, milk, and chocolate, and asking you to understand my vision of what amazing cupcakes they will be. But if you can endure a bit of temporary art and exploration as I develop this game, I’d love for you to come with me on this journey!

I plan to post devlogs on Youtube – and probably also post devlogs here – documenting my progress and letting you guys in on how an indie game like this is made by a single developer!

If you’re interested in seeing more of the game I have so far, I made a Youtube devlog a while back – which was a bit before I had landed on the idea of different dimensions: