Devlog #52 - Home Stretch

Happy new years everyone! I’m welcoming 2023 with…tiredness.

Before I talk about what we did in December and a brief recap of 2022, I’d like to say a big thank you to, well, you. Snacko has been in development for a long time, and we’ve been recording our progress since the early days back in 2018.

The project has evolve and grown from “a project” to a “real ass game”. Isn’t that wild?

Never once did we once think when we first started Snacko (at the time, snekocatgame.project) that it would grow to the size and bulk that it is today.

Last month marked a big milestone for us as we finally released the first playable alpha build for our Kickstarter backers and early day patrons that were grandfathered into early access. It’s been a long time coming since Snacko was in a playable state. For two years, the game was in spaghetti hell. A lot of the mechanics existed, but none of it worked together or were connected. Sure, you can farm and grow turnips, but where are you gonna get Turnip seeds from? Sure, you can sell your goods by plopping the shipping bin but Mikan didn’t have a schedule to physically come by and nab the things you wanted to sell.

That was sort of where Snacko stood for a long time while we worked on the skellybones of the project.

Dialogue system, shop system, UI, minimap, quest system, donating to the Cultural Center, fishing, getting NPCs to move to your island…

The list goes on!

So, thank you for celebrating with us as we are finally crawling out of the deep dark tunnels known as game development.

That long winded speech aside, this is a perfect lead-in to what we’ve been up to in December:

🗿 Cultural Center

Remember how I just said we spent many years laying down the foundations of the game? Yup! Now with the alpha out, many of the core systems are now connected and ready to go. Bugs aside, we’ve been heavily focused on pulling any remaining loose strands together and implementing new content.

What does that mean?

For example, in the past, you have always been able to donate items such as furniture, food, or fish to the Cultural Center for Miss Curator to display. However, the fish went…nowhere.

Yup. This is the aquarium. This was the aquarium for years. Seems like some space you’d be brought to and wake up with some missing limbs, right? It’s OK! I’ve been working on fixing that. Here’s a sneak peek at the area blocked out:

I based the feel of it on my experience visiting the aquarium in Okinawa a couple of years ago. When I was a wee lassie, my mom took me to Okinawa because I really wanted to see whale sharks. I was very obsessed with whale sharks. It was a great time, with a giant tank in the middle, and I want to recreate that feeling. While there will not be a whale shark in Snacko (….yet? ((hopeful))), I’m still excited to see the displays I’ve dreamt up for the fishies in Snacko to come to life.

Listen. You just gotta trust the process, okay??

Aquarium liminal space aesthetic aside, recursive has been working on some polish for the CC. Previously, you were able to donate furniture for the CC’s furniture exhibit. Each exhibit has a set list of items you can donate. For example, Softwood Exhibit allows for a chair, table, counter, and so on placed in a cute little room. However, you had to donate everything in the set before you could see the fruits of your labor. That’s terrible, right? I want instant gratification!! So, he has changed it that every item donated will show up immediately in the exhibit.

Um…because of some of the pivot fixes I have made over the last time we made these exhibits, it’s looking a little sus (where is the sink looking??). So yeah. I’ll fix that, don’t worry…

🐶 Villager Implementation

Since our plan involves “Bugs I Do Not Perceive”, I’ve been able to focus on implementing and creating content. In the past few weeks, I’ve implemented 4 additional NPCs including making their portraits!

Here’s a Kickstarter backer and long-time supporter (see: angel) Blossom’s villager: Fiona.

She is very sweet, so I hope you can be good friends with her! Look at those angery teefies. ANGERY

💌 Thank you for 2022

Wow, I’ve blabbered a lot today. I will try to make this short n sweet. 2022 was a HUGE year so I’ll uh try my best.

We started the year by starting our implementation of the main story. Through the first couple of weeks, along with Ken’s help, we were able to script, design, implement, and test the entirety of Snacko’s main story.

Next, we finally gave the mines the makeover they deserved. While there’s still some wrinkles to work out, at least the wrinkles are ✨pretty✨.

Then, we added a mini-map and map feature. Map feature is still…undercooked. But the flat images for the areas have been all done and a pin system put in place to help you find your way around.

To go with the maps, we also finished modelling, texturing, and set dressing the biomes that you will be able to explore. From the Grassy Plains all the way to the heights of the Frozen Tundra, we’re very proud of this achievement!

To really top off our ambition this year, we also reworked the build mode. Whether or not we are masochists are still up for debate, but we’re happy with how it turned out. Better flow for dyeing, moving, adding, and removing items from the world. You can even cycle through placed objects or hover over them to get the pop-up with the name! I did get to play some Sims 4 with a controller for a couple of hours as research, so it wasn’t too bad (says the person who wasn’t in charge of actually coding it).

Oh right, and then we announced that we are coming to PlayStation 4 and 5! Wowee! Cries in UI icons and implementation.

We also added a ton of content outside of the main story: villagers, their schedules, dialogues, portraits, and their houses! I want to say in 2022, we implemented about a dozen. The first couple definitely took us a lot longer as we found holes in our system that we had to patch or add to make Snacko villagers really come to life.

In addition to simply static objects and villagers, we also onboarded Miguel who handled all of the villager’s friendship events, heart events, and now schedules! Let’s give Miguel a big round of applause for essentially saving my life.

To really end the year off with a great bang of despair, we spent the last quarter of 2022 fixing bugs to make the alpha’s release possible. From Lan duplicating and stalking you in your house if you don’t introduce yourself to her all the way to an item duplication cheat, we’ve fixed hundreds of bugs and errors. We still have many more yet to pop up as we continue working on the game, and I don’t look forward to it. Yeah.

Anyways.

That’s a brief summary of 2022. Very bulky, very…draining, but very rewarding. See you next month! 👋

Thank you for supporting us!

Thank you for reading all the way until the end!

Thank you for making Snacko possible!

Thank you for making Snacko into what it is today!

Extra thank you to our Patrons and Ko-fi supporters! Without you, Snacko development would look very different. We appreciate every one of you 🐾