The Best Game Ever - WEEK 5 : A Dark Forest

[DEVLOG] Week 5

Current Goal 

This week, the game finally has a name... A Dark Forest.

Working on the alpha prototype inspired by  "a dark room" game, still figuring out in what direction to go with this.

Newest Progress 

Massive content update, here is a one minute video showcase (using debug ... i.e. no cooldown and faster resources):

This includes the new enemy screen where you fight colossal beasts...

New resources to be farmed...

New formatting of large numbers and more!

Next Week ?

• Various quality of life improvements?
• More enemies to defeat and more content?
• The beginning of the Cat NPC story questline ?
• Your suggestions ?

THIS WEEK BY DAY:

MONDAY - testing & fixing

• post previous week's devlog
• fix version label
• fix new save file name not set in metadata the first time you enter it
• fix compatibility with previous version's save file
• experiment with pixel art

TUESDAY - new content

• add new worker roles: iron miner, coal miner, iron smelter, swordsmith, sergeant, mason, explorer, torch man
• add new resources: coal, torch, iron ore, iron, sword, swordsman
• add new events for new unlocks
• add new "the darkness" tab
• add scrollbar to resources storage 

WENSDAY - refactors & extensions

• extend code logic to allow to pay in both resources and worker roles (e.g. swordsman costs: one sword (a resource) and one peasant (a worker role))
• display resource's name instead of the id (in the info ui)
• display swordsman as a worker role instead as a resource
• non-farmable resources (flint, fiber) moved to bottom of resources storage list 

THRUSTDAY - quality of life tweaks

• move population generation (from house's) logic from unlock controller to worker controller
• scale population generation by the number of houses instead of just one per cycle
• fix info not displaying on +/- button hover (hover trigger was only the label next to buttons)
• set minimal width to amount label bewteen +/- buttons (aligns -/buttons despide amount label not being equal width in every case as long as the minimal width is not exceeded)
• refactor to update efficiencies every time worker roles change, instead of only at cycle end
• display worker role (default peasant role) instead of worker resource (total population) 
• add QOL hint's (on -/population buttons) 
• NOTE: there is a "delay" on hint's for worker role (default peasant role) because it has a "velocity" (i.e. builders build houses and peasants move into houses, so there is a "delay" after a house is built and until a peasant is moved in, so when you stop building there is a "delay" during which peasants are still growing in number by moving into newest set of empty houses)

FRIDAY - I am not an artist, help!

• the darkness enemy screen pixel art

SATURDAY - big content update

• the darkness enemy screen progression
• the darkness enemy ui: health bar, title, texture
• the darkness enemy animation: shake shader, color displacement shader
• make swordsman attack the darkness enemy (passive damage)
• make the darkness enemy clickable (manual damage)
• the darkness effects: add damage label particle(s) in red
• make population particles more fun and in green
• add enemy on hover info
• add shake shader when hovering on enemy info

SUNDAY - QOL features & balancing & fixes & refactors

• add scroll container to root (easier to debug oversized ui)
• smaller font in resource storage tab (fix i.e. prevent oversized ui)
• scientific notation string format utils: 1k, 1M, 1B, ... (expecting large numbers on resource storage and population manager)
• add first tab name changes and diary events based on population growth: camp, village town, ...,  metropolis, ..., empire
• refactor event manager to smaller helper methods
• move early worker role unlocks to tool unlocks
• balance: reduce passive timer from 10 to 5 seconds
• fix worker controller bugs
• play and test features
• remove QOL hints (on -/population buttons) because they are messy, buggy and have many unintuitive edge cases
• add experience tracker
• scale manual damage done to enemy by experience

Long-Term Goal 

I have a dream to make the best game ever or die trying.

I will post a weekly update while trying to work on this project every day.

The game genre and everything else is subject to change.