Hello, everyone! A couple of weeks have passed, so it’s time for another development report from me. I’m happy to say that I’m taking my first steps toward turning the current project into a real game.

But first things first. I started with NPCs. It’s a rather strange system that requires a lot of forethought. Yet, in a couple of days, I created an NPC manager and my first NPC, Scarecrow. Just to test things out.

Then, I learned how to work with Godot plugins and installed a Dialogic plugin to create… dialogues. Those big speech screens. After studying the Dialogic documentation for a few days, I made the Scarecrow speak on command – hooray!

After working on the NPCs, I took a couple of days off. Meanwhile, I learned the basics of a few topics: cutscenes, screen shake, and shaders. Everything turned out to be super easy and fun, except for shaders.

Before moving on to the next part, I had to organize my files. This game had been my playground for quite some time, and my files were a complete mess. Once everything was working again, I started loading a huge amount of free assets from websites. Then, I spent a couple of days learning how to use Photoshop and alter spritesheets to my liking.

But why would I need a ton of free sprites? Because I was tired of working in an ugly scene with few spare pictures. I created a new scene with a pretty ground and walls, a blue sky, grass, trees, and stones. It is a beautiful place. Oh, and I had to learn how to work with tiles properly.

I won’t show you the beautiful room I mentioned. I have only just started beautifying things in this project! It’s time to make the UI look cool, too! Stay tuned, folks. [No more abandoned projects]

Hello, everyone! The last two weeks were super productive! I’m not ashamed to say that this project now really looks like a game (at least in terms of the UI).

I started with a three-step sword attack combo. Every game should have one of those! So I added it.

Then, I decided the main character should have a personal UI layer with a health bar and slots for melee and ranged weapons. It was done in a couple of days.

For some reason, I really wanted to create two stones on the level that could be used for teleportation. While adding the animation of teleporting in and out, I had to switch my attention to something else. To prevent the player from moving in the process, I added a State Machine (piece of code that checks if the player is running, standing, or teleporting) and the ability to block the user’s input in certain scenarios. Trust me, this is very useful.

What’s next? I decided to try implementing a save and load system. It’s a miracle, but it’s working! Now, the game has three different save slots.

Then, I went all in and added a full main menu. It has a moderate number of buttons and an cute label announcing that this program is indeed a game. I also added a loading screen with useful game tips and improved the transition between scenes. To make it more visually appealing, I added fade-ins and fade-outs for smoother transitions.

While adding a death screen, I had to learn advanced Godot debugging methods. It was super useful! Not to mention that the screen works. The character’s health goes to zero, and he dies with an animation. After some time, he respawns in a special place after you’ve looked at the text “YOU DIED” on the screen.

Then, something strange happened, and I added game settings in just one day. There are four empty tabs. The Sound tab has a “master volume” slider that actually changes the game’s volume. It’s somewhat useful, yes.

I’m happy to work so quickly, though it’s a bit shocking… I also wanted to remind you that everything in the current game is a placeholder. It’s meant to be replaced by real art and animations later. Oh, and have a nice summer! [No more abandoned projects]

Hello, everyone! The last two weeks have passed quickly. And I’m proud of my small achievements! It’s not just that I made more progress than before. I also feel more fluent in Godot now! That feels really good.

First, I decided to give the player and an enemy health bars. They are dynamic, changing color from green to yellow to red depending on how much health is remaining. To do that, I had to learn a bit about Themes. They’re something like visual templates for UI elements. Like progress (health) bars.

Then, I grew tired of the massive main character script and divided it into seven pieces. Movement, attacks, interactions, and everything else. Now it’s super comfortable, and I’m happy about that!

Remember the inventory? Two weeks ago, I was stuck on moving the items inside it. Now it works properly, you can freely drag and drop any items. As it turns out, Godot has an API for this specific feature — Drag&Drop. I had to learn how to use it, too.

Then, I modified the coins slightly. Now, you don’t have to press anything near them – they are picked up instantly. The coins counter was also removed from the pause menu. It now appears when a coin is picked up and when the inventory is open.

Oh, I almost forgot about the platforms! Well, they were really easy to add. Old-school platforms that you can jump on and then fall through by pressing the “crouch”+”jump” buttons.

Finally, I’m starting to have more fun while working. I make fewer mistakes and find them much faster. The learning pays off! [No more abandoned projects]

P.S.: This post has no image because nothing changed visually… Sorry.

Hello everyone! I recently had an interesting thought. Some of you might remember my posts five years ago when I was working on my first and most successful project Young Maria. They were surprisingly similar to the posts I write now! Five years ago I was learning Twine (editor for text games) just like I’m learning Godot now. And I think my next project will be similar to YM in many ways…

Well, let’s talk about what I actually learned in these two weeks! First of all, I failed to add aiming to the bow shot. I also failed at adding inventory and user input override. But I tried something new – every time I got stuck, I moved on to another task. It’s a new approach for me, and I think it’s much more rewarding in terms of time. And in the meantime I was still trying to learn something new.

Anyway, the new basic inventory system was a success! It can actually store multiple items, stop the player when it’s open, and everything. This was my first serious work with UI and InterfaceLayer. I also added three vases as pickable items to test the inventory. DeepSeek taught me how to make three interactable vases out of one scene with a “generic vase”.

What’s next? Well, I’d like to add the ability to move items in the inventory with the mouse. And then I guess I’ll have to learn how to split a base player script into different categories. Like, movement script, attack script, interaction script. This needs to be done as the code grows and becomes harder to navigate.

Thanks again for your support. These last days I’m working like a good little developer and very proud of my little achievements! [No more abandoned projects]

Hello-hello everybody! The epic trip I had in March has had some consequences and now I’m recovering from a little surgery. Sad, scary. But I’ll endure.

In the meantime, I managed to make some progress in learning Godot! First, I downloaded an open-source sprite sheet and familiarized myself with how to use it. I decided to add an animation to a melee attack, and now the main character can swing a sword! With an attack cooldown, but without a classic 3 swing attack (for now). While working on this animation, I learned more about AnimationPlayer (which plays… animations) and got a better understanding of tween(), which is a useful tool for super simple animations.

Second, I decided to add a ranged attack. A flying arrow. And for some reason I couldn’t stop making it more and more complex. For now, the arrow charges (from min to max charge), flies from the designed point, makes a curve and sticks into the ground with a shaking animation. After a few seconds it slowly disappears. Oh yeah, and it damages enemies on impact, sure! I also added a nice little “sticking into the ground” effect where the tip gets “buried” in the surface. I had to stop my work while creating a trajectory for the arrow.

I also got carried away and added a little archery target stand! It shows the damage of the arrow, yes. And it doesn’t prevent the player from walking through and shooting from the wrong side. So it works perfectly. Oh, and I added a slow motion effect while you double jump and charge the bow! Like I said, I was just playing while I was learning~

To be honest, I need to finish this little bow thing. Aiming almost works. And I guess the shooting system should come with the ability to aim with the mouse, but… I better not rush with the planning for now. There are plenty of other things to do.

Thanks for your support! I am staying the course and learning a lot. [No more abandoned projects!]

Hello everyone! Two weeks into the actual learning through development, and I have to say that I love it. I love working in Godot, yes. It’s so easy! Of course, I still make mistakes (even with the help of an AI tutor). But the progress is so much faster than when I was working on Homelands a year ago! Two weeks in and I can’t stop coding.

Yes, it looks like crap right now. But that’s intentional. The new approach I’m trying is to make code and art separately. So first comes the code. Then the sprites and the actual animations.

What do we have so far? I already know how to work with the basics. Nodes, scenes, signals, singletons, user input, animations (including Godot’s tweens), areas, tiles. In just two weeks I have covered more than 3 months of work on Homelands in Unity! I have already created attacks (melee and ranged), health, thorns on the ground, interaction system and am currently working on the inventory.

What’s next? Who knows! There’s so much to do… Enemies, NPCs, houses, weapons, items, lighting, new scenes. But I want you to know, I’m not aiming to make old Homelands. Right now I’m just creating systems that will be needed in the future game. The bones of the project, yes.

Thanks for your support! I really hope I can keep up the pace. Also, I have to go on a trip in a few days. That means I’ll be working a little less for the next two weeks.

[No more abandoned projects.]

Hello everyone! We’re here today for some small talk and I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. Just know that I wanted to do this for a few months already.

My first game was Young Maria. A simple text game that was my personal great success. Then I got tired and made a few small text games, abandoning each one. I tried to make Homelands, my first 2D game, but was crushed by how difficult it was for me. Then I made a few more text games, but all the time I wanted to go back to Homelands, to 2D.

I decided to “take the L”. I’m a sorry developer and adjustments have to be made. A lot of abandoned projects in six years taught me a few things. And I will list them below. These lessons will be my guidelines for future work.

• I want to make 2D games. Text games are cool, but I want to do more than that. Yes, sorry again, Morning Coffee was also born to be abandoned. It was part of the plan.
• The next game will be 2D. And most importantly, I will not abandon it. That’s my sacred vow. If I get bored? Rest. If the game sucks? Rest, then improve. If people hate it? Ask, then change. Good games have been made for years, I get it now.
• I know how to make text games, but I’m a newbie in 2D. Don’t skip steps in learning, don’t pretend I’m a programming pro.
• Use AI. Don’t get me wrong, I hate AI and my games will never contain AI code/art. But AI is good for teaching me how to code and for drawing concepts for my artists. It’s useful and I can’t ignore it as an indie developer.

For the last few weeks (when I wasn’t sick with a cold lol) I’ve been studying Godot, talking to AI and my coding friends. They pointed out a lot of my mistakes I made while working on Homelands a few months ago. And I’m super happy about that! I won’t make a huge list of those mistakes to save your time, so just trust me, I guess…

Thanks to all of you for your support. Again, no more abandoned projects.