Idle Meowser Dev Log 1
12/15/2024 The Plan Is Simple(?)
Gods how do I start this uhhhHHHH- Ohai guys! For those of you that don't know, my name is Cloudy! I'm a former Vtuber that has taken the plunge into game development, buuuut I've only just started in the past week. After about 5 days of doing it, I had an idea; why not log the development of this game I wanna make from the very beginning all the way to the 1.0 release and beyond? It might be fun, if not at least entertaining for people who understand this stuff way better than I do.
I'm going to be developing this game in Unreal Engine 5 in Blueprint mode, since it seemed like the most beginner friendly to me out of all the options I looked into. While I would love to learn C++, it's one of the few things I just can't really teach myself. It's like my brain checks out as soon as I look at it. All of the visual assets will be drawn by me in Clip Studio Paint unless stated otherwise, and any music I'm going to try and make myself using MuseScore. The latter will probably be a little tricky, since I haven't looked into writing music since high school, but once I start learning it again it shouldn't be tooooo bad... probably-
Oh, but I guess I should explain what the plan is for this game. As you can probably guess from the title of this video, it's going to be called Idle Meowser; it's going to be a idle clicker game with a few other important mechanics. If I had to give an example... Think of something similar to Cookie Clicker; you click a button to get points, which we'll be calling kibble, to buy upgrades so you can make even more kibble. Now, think of a pet simulator like Neopets, Subeta, or Flight Rising; you have to care for a pet's hunger, health, and happiness. And lastly, add something like the Princess Maker series, where you're going to be judged on how well you've cared for your pet within a specific time frame and neglect could result in the pet running away and getting hurt.
Those three things will be the setup of Idle Meowser. You'll be charged with caring for a cat that the King of Cats, Ramses, has entrusted into your care as a test. You will have to generate Kibble Points (KP) to buy food, water, medicine, and toys as well as cosmetics for your cat. If you do well when he shows up for evaluation, you win and get to keep playing in a never-ending loop. If you've treated your cat poorly, King Ramses will take your cat away and place a curse on you, resulting in a game over and a corrupted save file. Your cat will be highly customizable by breed, coat pattern, size, facial features, colors, and randomized personality traits that will affect your game; no two cats will be the same, just like in real life. Accessories like collars will be able to be bought, but only certain specific ones will have any actual effect on the gameplay. You may also get an avatar for yourself, if you so choose, which will be equally as customizable in a paper doll-like fashion.
So far, I understand how to make the button you actually click to get Kibble Points and how to make a very basic shop, but the "idle" part is proving to be a little tricky. I'm going to do some research to sort out how to add KP/s before I work on anything else, since that's prettyyyy important for a game like this. Look forward to the next update!