So about this game I'm writing...

The game is going to be about survival in the wilderness. Basically, you will have to survive as long as possible in a harsh environment by crafting tools, gathering food, building a shelter, that sort of stuff. You have probably seen it done before in the likes of "Minecraft", "Terraria" or the more recent "Don't Starve". Each of these games is unique in its own way and treats survival differently.

Minecraft is a 3D game about survival.. for about 3-4 hours.That is because in minecraft, surviving becomes very easy after a period of time.You build a farm for food, mine for ores in order to craft better equipment. You craft weapons and build walls to defend against night monsters. Dying also isn't so inconvenient, since you will always respawn next to the last bed you slept in.

Survival becomes easier after some time

Due to the fact that the game world is generated using blocks to represent different materials(dirt,wood,sand etc.), one can build pretty much anything they imagine. Minecraft also generates 'almost' infinite terrain. That might sound odd, but check the link for more info. The playable area is estimated to be larger than the surface of the earth(now that's a lot of stuff to explore). What I'm trying to say is that Minecraft is not a survival game per se, but more of a PC (and now Xbox) version of LEGO. The games official site says:"At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things."

Minecraft is more about building stuff than actual surviving.

So the game is not really about survival, and it doesn't matter, because Minecraft has sold about 11,000,000 copies. Those are copies bought legally, mind you.Think about how many more people pirated the game. That's a lot of success for a game written by one man in his pijamas.

Terraria is similar to Minecraft, in that it shares the block-based building mechanic, only in a 2D side-view perspective. Similarly, surviving becomes rather easy after a few hours of well thought playing.

Terraria uses a 2d perspective and shares minecraft block-based system for editable terrain

 The difference being, that in late-game Terraria, the focus is set more on adventure( exploring, fighting bossfights, finding the best loot and so on and so forth) rather than creativity. That means that even if many people accuse Terraria of being a Minecraft-clone, the game separates itself from Minecraft through its unique fantasy world.

Many fantastic creatures,items and adventures make terraria unique

Don't Starve is my personal favourite. It is, in my opinion, a true survival game. The game combines 2D sprites with a randomly generated 3D world. It does not use a block-based system like Terraria or Minecraft, thus creativity is not so emphasized.

Surviving in this game is a constant struggle, and every morning you find yourself alive in, gives you a huge sense of accomplishment. A small mistake can often mean disaster, as you die permanently and your savegame gets deleted. This forces you to be very careful and pay attention to everything around you. It also means dying, after surviving for 30 in-game days(one game-day takes 8 minutes in real life) is highly frustrating. I, personally like that kind of harsh gameplay and find it very rewarding at times.

Surviving is hard in Don't Starve

So why did I talk about these three games? Well, because these are the games that convinced me it was time to write my own game. Why? Don't get me wrong, I like all three of these games, they are masterpieces in fact, but there's stuff I like and stuff I don't like in each of these games. I like the way the terrain is generated in Minecraft and Terraria and the fact that it can be modified, but I don't like the 'blockyness' of this method. I like the harshness of surviving in Don't Starve, but I'm not happy with its terrain either. What I want is destroyable, infinite terrain that also looks smooth and appealing, which i have almost figured out how to do, but that will be covered in a future post.

So what will the game (hopefuly) be like? It will share the 2D side-view perspective of terraria. I'm doing it 2D for the sake of simplicity. It's far easier to program and the game art will be easier to do(considering I'm not a good artist).I wish to implement physics in the future and make everything from tree branches to grass and little stones move accordingly in the world. Everything will be procedurally generated(terrain, cave systems, clouds, even trees and grass), that means you will not find two trees or rocks looking the same. The game character will be highly customizable with a variety of traits and skills ( I want to make it very RPG-like). The character will also get better at some skills when using them more(e.g. you will get better at woodcutting the more trees you cut down), similarly to Skyrim(which is a great game by the way).

I have many more ideas for the game, some of them deserving an article of their own. I will talk more about them as this blog goes on. In the next post I will talk about what I have done so far, terrain generation. Over and out!