[zu] - Short Game Devlog 1

I haven't posted in this blog for quite some time, but this is exactly why I opened it in the first place. I've been quite busy these past months, but I shouldn't give up on writing and publishing something every so often. On Monday I finally handed in a term paper on Atheism and Progressive Christianity in North America that was long overdue. You can read it here, if you're interested.

In any case, I've been sick and sta(d)ying in my apartment this week, which has allowed me to revisit this game idea I've been playing with for over a year now. I started this project exactly twelve months ago when I started suffering from clinical depression. However, this only worsened during the long winter lock-down in Germany from October 2020 to May 2021, after which I spent some time at a psychiatric center, so I've only been able to get back to it now, after getting back into Unity for the past few months during my free time.

Well, shit. I've been feeling much better for some months now, with everything (and everyone) opening up again, so I figure I should finish this project before the end of the year to hopefully put this life chapter to rest.

The game I'm working on is called Apartment Shrinking Game no, now it's Zerthis. Actually, now it's called [zu] thank you very much - which is a reference to a piece of music called "Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image" by Eluvium, one of my favorite artists whose music I also shared in my previous post, back in July. Precisely when I was publishing that post I was thinking about this project; and the poem and song which appear in that post will hopefully appear in the final game. Tho, by saying that I'm already giving some details away.

 

 

In the video I've linked below we can see the interior scene where the majority of the game is supposed to take place. I haven't yet added some rain that's supposed to pour outside and for anyone who knows me, the sheer lack of audio work should almost come as a surprise. However, I am working on that. First I want to make sure I have the basic functionality of all the systems in my head before I start playing with the more artistic side of things.

While being away from my main computer, I've worked on somewhat of a Game Design Document (GDD) where I store all of my ideas, which is pretty much finalized (it's not very long). You can also check that out here, if you'd like.

(Obviously, the GDD spoils the entire game, so maybe check it out after playing the game, which you can now download here.)

 

 

Since this is supposed to be a devlog, I'll log some of the things I've dev'd in this project so far.

Initially, I modeled the apartment using ProBuilder in Unity, following this tutorial in parts, if I remember correctly? This is the first thing I did, which was almost a year ago. I was also originally thinking of making one scene where I can shrink the walls of the apartment and move the furniture around, and built a small play area for that concept using UnityEvents. However, in the end I decided it would make much more sense to make individual scenes where I re-scale the apartment and move the furniture around, and simply move some important variables between scenes. I have to say, tho, UnityEvents are a really useful feature, and have been kind of a game changer for quickly adding functionality between Game Objects in Unity.

There's not much to tell other than that. I spent a good while looking for textures and assets to use in the Asset Store, on itch.io, OpenGameArt.org, textures.com, and also cc0textures.com, and slowly put my interior scene together. I have a crazy amount of unused assets in my project folder, but all in all, I think it's coming together nicely, considering as well that I have no experience in interior design or 3D modeling either (yet).

I think I might publish a second devlog by the end of the month, for when I finish my prototype, as stated earlier, and will also share some more details about what I'm learning for anyone interested.