Norway Roadtrip & Game Design Document – Journey of a Solo Game Developer (Journal #4)

Greetings dear journal (and to you, dear reader)

Today is the 13th of June and the time is 8:53 AM. I woke up just recently to follow my traditions: Sitting on my porch, drinking coffee in peace and silence. Writing this.

I arrived from my Norway roadtrip yesterday which was a blast! I was able to visit so many places within the past week. Lots of walking over the hills and far away, sleeping in a tent, in my car and even some small hostel.

Northern Norway is such a beautiful place. This was not the first time I visit there, but the first time with the places I ended up being. Places like Sommarøy, Senja and Rago offered all types of experiences and weather. From heavy rainfall to sunshine and rainbows. From excitement and amaze to desperation with all gear wet and cold.

I’m rather confident in saying that this given trip was one of the best ones I’ve had in a while.

Fun thing is that I actually developed my (project name) Fisherman Galaxy game in Norway as well. Not by intention, but it just happened. I found myself drawing in-game assets and writing a game design document (what?!) during the silent mornings and in the car (when not driving).

I’m currently rather exited of the fishing game I’m building. I feel like it could become something interesting and… Different? But this time, nothing too different. Something that is easy to grasp and understand, but still offer a combination I’ve never heard of before.

Here is a short description from my game design document I started writing. For some reason, it felt like the best approach to start writing things down. I wanted to start writing the GDD in a way that it could work as a ”manual” for the player.

Fisherman Galaxy is a ”roguelite” fishing game with autobattler mechanics. You catch different fishes from the ”Wateria” -planet and use them to battle within the Fisherman Tournaments. The aim is to win enough battles before running out of ’LIVES’.

The ”coreloop” of the game is the following:

FISH CATCHING: Catch fishes and artifacts/items within different ’FISHING REGIONS’ of the Wateria planet

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT: Manage inventory slots to have the optimal items/fishes for the upcoming battle

VILLAGE TRADING: Trade items within different ’VILLAGE REGIONS’ of the planet

TOURNAMENT BATTLE: Enter the ’FISHERMAN TOURNAMENT’ with your collected gear and items

Go back to step 1

Even though the scope of the project may sound rather big within the description above, I feel that it could become something I can manage. At least it feels like so. Let me explain:

The Fish Catching scene is just a single scene, which have different elements that change depending on which area the player is fishing. So it’s mostly just drawing assets, rather than building complicated mechanics.

The inventory management is rather strictly built, with no intentions in adding a lot of variety in the items. Each of the items can be used within the tournament and/or sold for coins. And that’s it. No fancy unique mechanics.

Village Trading will also be just a single scene, where the shops and NPC characters change depending on the regions the player is currently. There is a rather limited amount of things the player is able to trade.

The tournament will also be a single scene, which only varies on the graphical side and also on what type of fishes the enemy uses.

Currently, it feels like the project is planned properly and there SHOULD not be any massive surprises ahead which could extend the scope. Sure, there have been dozens of moments that I almost extended the scope. But this time, I understood it while writing the GDD that I shouldn’t do it. Keep it simple, keep it small.

If it becomes something interesting for the players, I can add more features and mechanics to it. But I should keep the score very simple and manageable.

The development is currently rather slow, since my kids are on their summer vacation and there is not that much of time to focus on the project during the days. But it’s OK and expected. I’m just going to chill and enjoy the process.

Interesting to see how it develops within the coming weeks!

Want to have a chat with me (and fellow game developers)? Be sure to drop into our Discord channel here: https://discord.gg/Cb9hY8y