January Devlog - Rockin' Demo Progress

Welcome back to another devlog! Last time was pretty generalized since I was covering all of 2024 but this month will be all about Rockin' Resort.

As I move toward building Rockin' Resort's demo, there are a few more features that still need to be ironed out. Most of these are fairly simple and I won't get into every detail but the main and most noticeable changes are worth discussing. Let's dive in!

A Travel UI

Up until this point, I've been using Godot's default UI for Rockin' Resort but that won't work for a release. I tried a UI similar to Catgirl Care Chibi but it didn't fit the vibes of Rockin' Resort very well. It needed to be reworked.

For the current UI, I took inspiration from old postcards and I feel it fits the summer-y resort theme much better. I even designed a colorful logo!

The full logo is a vector so I can resize to be as big as I want. Fun! This version's just a PNG though.

Assembling a Demo

Rockin' Resort's demo is coming along well. I've already created Coral's dialogue/scripting and I've started blocking out areas that you'll be able to visit. My current goal is to get the demo fully playable before going in and adding all the 3D assets.

Though completing the demo will still have several challenges, the important news is that all of the gameplay systems I've build out appear to be working as intended! That should mean that once I go to build the final game, the process should stay relatively smooth and I can focus on adding content instead of code.

Custom Cameras

The camera system in Rockin' Resort was never really something I thought about when planning the game but I always knew I wouldn't be satisfied only using static angles. Once I started building out the demo, I decided it was also time to create a more useful camera system.

The camera system is currently a work in progress. There are two components: camera tilt according to mouse position and camera animation via mouse drag. The first system is intended to give the static camera a bit more life while the dragging system is intended for more camera motion and player-controlled motion. I'm planning to add controller and keyboard support at some point but it's still a work in progress and everything may change.

One of the things I'm experimenting with is Godot's Curve tools. These allow me to customize the way the speed ramps which helps improve the feel of the camera quite a bit.

What's Next?

My current main goal is to finish the demo for Rockin' Resort. When that's done, it'll replace the regular devlog for the month and I'll get started on finishing Catgirl Care Chibi!

I don't expect Rockin' Resort's demo to take much longer but it really depends on what my schedule allows. That said, even if the demo is not finished this upcoming month, I'll still have more progress to show off!

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Thanks for supporting my art and game development! With Rockin' Resort and Catgirl Care, development is going to be a bit slower so your support really counts (especially while I don't have a public demo available). I hope to see you again next devlog!