Category: Blog

Time to beautify!

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]

3
1

Wow, is it actually a game??

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]

3
1

Learning pays off?

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.

3
1

Inventory, to store your vases

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]

4
1

How To Shoot A Bow

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!]

2
1

Update on how it’s going

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.]

5
2

Next step in my work

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.

7
4

Morning Coffee v1.1.0! Better chances

Play online
Download Online/Offline version

Hello everyone! This is a relatively small update. I tried to add one extra thing to the game, but it didn’t work and I had to remove it completely. A few days were wasted. Still, I’ve decided to release this update anyway.

In v1.1.0 I’ve made events more frequent (30%->40%), increased the clothing bonus (5%->10% per level) and added a makeup that gives another 10% to the event chance. Players said there was not enough content and the chance of triggering scenes was too low. I decided to start with the second problem. Work events can be summoned with 80% chance and I personally think that’s way too high. Please tell me if I’m right.

I also added Kitchen and Bathroom for the future. They lack content, yes. And I moved Messages to Laptop, because they ‘feel’ better there.

UPD v1.1.0
Added:
– Added optional morning rituals. Basically they are reminders in the left side menu that appear in the morning and remind the player to drink coffee (if necessary) + apply makeup + take useless birth control pills.
– Added a Bathroom. You can apply makeup there in the morning. It gives an additional +10% chance to trigger events. I also added the ability to take contraceptive pills, but it has no use for now 🙂
– Added a Kitchen. You can brew coffee there. It will give you +20 energy. It’s free, but you can only drink it twice a day.
Changed:
– Messages moved from Phone to Laptop. I had planned to use messages in scenes of Evelyn’s daily life, but the architecture of the system I created is clearly not suited for that. That’s okay, I’ll just use them differently now by creating scenes differently.
– Now all boss activities like Working/Loitering/Ordering will have a higher base chance of occurrence (30%->40%). This may still not be enough, but let’s start small for now. I also increased the chance of events appearing in the Club (lvl2 boss) and Gentlemen’s Club/Racecourse (lvl3 boss) scenes by 10%.
– Also, clothing now adds 10% per level to the base event chance. (Previously added 5% per level).
– Now you can recover 70 energy in the morning instead of 100.

Well, again, please tell me if the chance of triggering events is too high. And see you later, folks!

36
20

Morning Coffee v1.0.0! A final touch~

Play online
Download Online/Offline version

Hello everyone! What a month it was… Anyway, the v1.0.0 is here! I still can’t believe it, but here we are.

In this update, I added a little bit more scenes to existing bosses, some content to Messages (they are not so useless now), and improved the Watch Porn and Social Media sections in the Laptop. Basically, this is what I wanted v1.0.0 to look like. This game still needs the 4th boss and more events, scenes.

But to be honest, I have to ask the fans for their opinion about further development. When I started making MC, I made two rules for myself: to keep it relatively simple and to ask the fans what they want to see in this game. That’s what I’m going to do next – take a survey from some people.

If you would like to participate in this survey, feel free to DM me on Discord. My name is milkynail.

UPD v1.0.0
Added:
– Added the ability to send and receive images in Messages.
– When you get a new boss (including the very first boss, Mike), he will now write to you in Messages. This always happens when Evelyn enters the Living Room.
– By the way, the chat with a certain boss is only available after he has sent you a message. Just a small detail.
– Added one last message from the first boss, Mike. On the evening of the day when the player changes him to Richie, Mike will text you to tell you that you did not act nicely. And you will have the opportunity to give him some valuable advice.
– I’ve included a final message from Richie. It contains 4 pictures~ I really hope that the size of them is comfortable.
– The Watch Porn section in the Laptop now has 9 gifs, three for each of the available levels. They get more and more perverted as the main character gets more and more corrupted, and there are “thoughts” of the main character for each gif. These gifs weigh a lot, unfortunately I was not able to compress them all to a comfortable size.
– Now, while Loitering with Mike (lvl1 boss), there’s a 15% base change to encounter a new scene. Hypnotized by a porn video on a cell phone, Evelyn starts to masturbate. And Mike catches her. You need 25 points of Corruption to make things even more interesting and see 3 new gifs~
– Added a tiny NSFW event with a gif to Loitering with Richie (lvl2 boss). Tiny but cute.
– Added 10 random pictures to Social Media (in Laptop). Beautiful or ‘cringe’, they reflect the internet and let players feel this section better now.
Changed:
– Fixed an embarrassing bug that caused messages to not display at all.

Thanks again for your patience! Don’t forget to text me if you have anything to say about Morning Coffee, and see you later!


Morning Coffee v0.9.9! You’ve got a message!

Play online
Download Online/Offline version

Hello everyone! What a month it has been. First of all, I planned to make this version v1.0.0, but… I want to add more content in the next update. This game needs some more scenes and activities. Then it will be v1.0.0!

But what did I add in this update? Two things: a new visual style and a messenger! And yes, I spent a whole month on it, working on it every day. I promised myself that Morning Coffee would be a simple game without complicated systems, but the messenger was something I couldn’t get out of my head for months! I had it implemented. It’s pretty neat, but I still have to add content to it. It will be done in a few weeks.

I also wanted to add the “road” system for the main character to navigate around the city with scenes, but for some reason I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I know that MC is a game that can use the road system, and I agree, but every time I try some kind of travel, it feels off. I will think about it more though, maybe there is an elegant solution.

UPD v0.9.9
Added:
– Added Messages to the Phone! Now you can receive messages! But they still need to be added so that the player can receive them, this is in progress. For now, the messenger itself has been created.
– Purely for the test, bosses will send you messages when you do not wake up on time from too low Sanity. You can reply to them and say that you’re sorry for oversleeping.
Changed:
– Converted all animations from .gif format to .webp format, which reduced the weight of the media folder by almost half without any loss of quality!
– Changed the visual style of the game. This affected absolutely everything, including headers, links, fonts, buttons, backgrounds, media… Everything.
– Fixed “back” links in the Wardrobe and Online Clothes Shop. Tiny change.

Thank you for patience! I really hope that v1.0.0 will be great. Or at least promising. Stay warm!