Hy everyone !

Like the last month, i'm sharing with you the advancement on my new game project, a medieval City builder. I'm trying to show you what a solo gamedev can make during working days and describe you all creative steps before to have a finished and shipped game.

I detail every working week with the total amount of time i spent in work, a quick view of my charge of work, tired level, motivation and respect of schedule delay. I represent it with this scale :

Good 🟢 🟡 🟠 🔴 Bad
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Calendar color meaning
🟩 Art
🟧 Development Work
🟪 Communication / Socials
🟦 Research / Documentation / Formation
🟨 Work management
🟥 Administrative Tasks
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🗓️ Week 1 (5-9 january)

🕙 Worktime: 43 h 15
Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟢 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord
• New screenshots design for Steam page
• Creation of a mini gameplay teaser the Steam page
• Updates of Steam capsules
• Creation of communications support (post image templates..., video templates)

🚧 Development : Demo

• Improvement/Polishing of main menus
• Creation of an inn/tavern mini-game

💼 Other

• Validation of registration for the Steam Next Fest in February

Weekly review

A busy Week of work with a strong return to the programming part of the project. I started the week with preparation of new images used to update the screenshots on the game Steam Page. I took the opportunity to make and add a small gameplay teaser. This start of week was also marked by the validation of my registration to the February's Steam Next Fest ! Yes, it's official! I'll must finishing the demo before the fatidic date of February 11, date wich I'll need to release a buid of the demo that the Steam team can do a review and validate (or not) this build. This date give me enough time to fix issues that Steam will notify me.

I took advantage of new graphic contents to make some templates for communication materials. I spent all my tuesday afternoon to create templates for TikTok and Instagram videos to speed up upcoming posts.

I went back to the game code to work on menus. I have finished the main menu, the settings menu and the credits menu, so I won't be going back to them.

I have finished the week with the creation of the first mini game will be use when players will validate an inn/tavern recipe. The goal will be to represent all the preparation steps of a meal or beverage by starting a series of mini games for each ingredient in the selected recipe. For example, if the recipe contains some "cuttable" ingredients, players will have to succeed to click at right time on a gauge with target circles. This type of mechanic is regularly found in games where players are supposed to "cook".

🗓️ Week 2 (12-16 january)

🕙 Worktime: 45 h 30
Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord
• Small website creation
• Press kit creation

🚧 Development : Demo

• Design of 3 mini-games

Weekly review

Very busy week with a lot of programming work. I've mainly worked on mini-games that will be offered to players when they will build a tavern or an inn. Once the customization of their building will be done, they will be able to select the ingredients for a meal recipe for an inn or a drink recipe for a tavern. When they validate the recipe, a series of mini-games are launched to make this management phase more attractive. At the end of this mini-games session, a grade is delivered based on the games results and helps to improve financial gains and customers satisfaction.

I've also work on communication part of the game with the creation of a small website and a press kit which I'm very proud of the result obtained in such a short time of work. I still need to put all these elements online, but i'll do it next week because my worktime counter has already exploded. I need to be careful on this point, because the more the Steam Next Fest approach, the more my worktime number increases!

I've finished the week with some research for the conception of the upcoming trailer for the game before spending all my afternoon resting.

🗓️ Week 3 (19-23 january)

🕙 Worktime: 44 h 45
Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord
• Website release
• Press kit release
• Sharing the Press kit

⚙️ Gamedesign

• Simplification of the system for attracting new villagers, travelers...
• Adjusting the limit values ​​for recipe creation

🚧 Development : Demo

• Work on shop management
• Added a ranking system for recipes
• Added a shop rating system

💼 Other

• Registering the game for virtual events

Weekly review

A new busy week work but very productive! However, I managed not to exceed the working hours from last week. Working hours have even been reduced by almost an hour 😅

I've completed several communication tasks, such as releasing the one-page site for the game and releasing a press kit. I sent the press kit to websites and press outlet specialized in video games. We'll see what happens and if my message in a bottle reaches anyone! I also have registed Ellsydia for a virtual event in may.

Besides that, I've continued my programming tasks et finished integrating the mini-game I've developed done last week. Now, a game type is triggered by the recipe content of a building. For example, if the recipe contains a "cuttable" ingredient, then the cutting mini-game is triggered... I've worked on recipe grade attribution system. Indeed, a grade is assigned based on players' results in the series of mini-games launched. I also took advantage of the opportunity to implement the notation system for shops and buildings that offer recipes. This rating system is presented with stars that are unlocked based on various events.

There is still a lot of work to be done if I want participate in February's Next Fest. By the way, I'm just realized I only have 19 days to release a demo buid on Steam 😱

🗓️ Week 4 (26-30 january)

🕙 Worktime: 46 h 30
Workload: 🟠 | Fatigue level: 🟠 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟠

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord

⚙️ Gamedesign

• Villager day system revision

🚧 Development : Demo

• Villager activity management
• Building upgrades
• Dialogue system
• Creation of various windows (welcome, thank you, etc.)

💼 Other

• Administrative tasks 🥱

Weekly review

This fourth and final week of January has been very (too?) busy! I don't have much time left to deliver a build in time for the February Steam Next Fest and it shows. My morale and motivation are good, despite the fact that I'm stressing a lot about the possibility of not being ready for this Next Fest and physical fatigue is starting to set in. So I rolled up my sleeves and kept working on the various programming tasks I have left to finish the demo.

The week started with modifying how villagers' activities are managed. This part needed to be simplified and there were a few elements missing that I hadn't had time to integrate. I also added the welcome and thank you windows that will display when players launch and exit the game.

I then developed a simple dialogue system to communicate certain information to players and make the demo more friendly. I did some boring administrative tasks and continued my communication work, even though I was less diligent on that side this week.

The week ended with working on the placement of "large" buildings. In Ellsydia, you can find 2 different building sizes: simple ones (1 tile) and large ones (2 tiles). Until now, I hadn't managed the placement of this type of building which overlapped with others during construction in the game area 😅. I had to handle the various placement conditions and limitations. For example, making the building transparent when construction isn't possible at the current location.

Nothing complicated in itself but it's not the most fun thing to do. Like many other tasks developed this week, important for a game to function, but not really interesting to detail here 😁

📈 January review

Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

As expected, this month of January was exclusively dedicated to programming work on Ellsydia. There's still a ton of work to do before the demo release and even more for the game launch! Despite everything, it's really rewarding to see the game taking shape little by little.

Unfortunately, I had to postpone some communication tasks I had planned but which would have taken me too much time to produce. The priority being the demo production.

Regarding wishlists, these still aren't huge numbers, but they're still increasing and most importantly there haven't been any removals 💪.

Result:44 wishlists, that's 10 more than the previous month.

Thank you so much to everyone who added the game to their wishlist and who supports my little project!

Here we go! I'm going to start the final stretch before Next Fest. I'll know very soon if I'll be able to participate in this February edition or if I'll have to cancel my participation and aim for the next one. Something that would significantly change my schedule for the game release...

Whatever happens, see you next month for a new devlog, new information and new numbers.

Before I leave you, a little call for help: add Ellsydia to your wishlist, please!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4159160/Ellsydia

Let's show Steam that people are interested in my little game 🥰

I wish you all a great day, afternoon, or evening!

Thank you for reading 🙏