ToyOwlet

I'm developing my game mostly alone! I say "mostly" because so far, at this stage in development, I've had some help from my boyfriend with sound effects for the dinosaurs in my game. Other than that, I do all the coding, art, marketing, etc. It's slow going, especially with a full time job and family, but when I feel discouraged or burnt out I look back at where my game was and where it is now, and it reminds me it's definitely been worth it and to keep pushing on.

Typically wherever I’m showing off my game. Youtube - in the description Reddit - in comments to a post I’ve made for the game DeviantART - in every art submission’s description Twitter - in my website url or Bio section I have found most of my followers have come from Reddit, DeviantART, or from a friend’s invite. Hope this helps. ?

I've been getting a little R&R as of late so haven't been working as hard, but I do still sneak in some art time. I've been working on a new biome: coastal. Here's a little preview of the tiles, beach grass, ambience, etc! Still a WIP. beachpreview.mp4

Blog Post link: https://blog.toyowlet.com/2018/09/devblog-5-t-rex-in-game-ailments.html Discord: https://discord.gg/JM6h4Qm Hey there! Exciting news, T Rex is finally stomping around in game! Check out the video below to see a few of them in action! T. Rex So yep, as you can see, T. Rex is in the game! Its top and bottom facing animations still need to be done, but since it has at least its side walking animations, I can start testing it out in game and adding onto its behavior ("AI"). I've decided T. Rex will be a creature that pairs only with its mate, and will tolerate only its mate and children in the same area it's in. It will tolerate herbivores if it's not hungry. It will attempt to kill any carnivores (including other Rexes) that are in its territory. Dino Behaviors I wanted to touch upon dinosaur behaviors (or "AI") a bit in this post. I am going to attempt to make dinosaurs act as natural as possible. They will have basic needs, which I'll list and describe in detail below: Appetite - Basically food and water combined. Appetite will drop in value over time. A dinosaur can raise its appetite value by eating its preferred food (plants or meat). Dinosaurs may occasionally visit water for a drink if they're close enough as well. Social - The need for the dinosaur to group with others of its kind. Instead of a value, this will likely just be a true or false variable. For example if the dinosaur is a loner, we'll go with: "social = false;" or if the dinosaur does group, we'll use: "social = true;" Aggression - This will be a simple true or false variable as well. If set to false, the dinosaur will be timid and attempt to flee from extreme situations. It will also be passive around other dinosaurs and the player. If set to true, the dinosaur will be aggressive and will attempt to fight other dinosaurs and the player if they wander too close. You can imagine most carnivores will be aggressive, but there will be a few herbivores as well that you may not want to get too close to. (; These are the main three needs I've thought of. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments or in the discord if you have ideas for other needs! Dino Ailments Using our poor Rex as an example, wild and tamed dinosaurs will get ailments dependent on some factors. If a dinosaur is starving, there is a small chance of it getting sick with the "Saurian Flu". Dinosaurs who have recently been wounded also have a chance to get infections. Pictured above you will see Parasites, Bumblefoot, and Saurian Flu afflictions. Wild dinosaurs are mostly out of luck if they come down with an ailment, but tamed dinosaurs can be cured as long as the player notices the disease in time. Ailments will gradually damage a dinosaur over time until it dies or the dinosaur is cured. Dino Skins & Variants Wild spawned dinosaurs and hatched dinosaurs will have a small chance to spawn with a skin variation. Dinosaurs will have at least 1 or 2 variations. Most of the "wild" type skin variations will be natural mutations such as albinism, melanism, piebaldism, leucism, erythrism, caeruthism (fictional) and xanthism. Once breeding is implemented, dinosaurs can hatch with unnatural skin types and patterns by breeding parents with certain mutations together. Pictured above are three mutated T. Rex, in order: Caeruthic, Albino, and Melanistic.

I've used discord for a while and recently made one for my in-dev game. Dinocanid basically said everything I was going to! I find discord much easier to maintain and push updates on honestly. I also use it to instantly share smaller things with the community, like new art, concepts, anything really. I also get tons of feedback and suggestions from my discord users. Overall it's just a very big plus that I can post in discord and people can respond a second or two later. It's really nice having that immediate communication and responding to users right away. ? It opens up a lot more conversation and encourages others to hop in as well. My discord is fairly new and I've only been using text channels, not voice channels unless it's with my other developer. I'll likely utilize the voice channels for things like future streams while I work, contests, etc. Discord has some built in protection and you can set the level of protection you want, though I doubt you'd get any malicious users if you're only posting the link in your own site/blog/etc. There's also bots you can invite to your discord that can handle all sorts of things, like assigning new users roles, giving users exp and levels when they post, setting up mini-games directly in your discord, the list goes on. You may already know all this but just mentioning it anyway for any others out there who are reading and curious. Also regarding maintaining it, there really isn't much to maintain once it's set up. You just have to stay active on it, respond to people, and post updates periodically there. That's really all there is to it! So bottom line I think discord is great and very useful if you're ready to get feedback from players on your game, and even after your game is released it's a great place for users to communicate with one another. They can share their achievements, ask for help, make friends, etc! If you can't tell by now I really love discord. ? If anyone needs help setting up a discord or setting up bots let me know. I would love to help!

I've been heavily improving the art in the game this past week. It's so nice to be able to go back to just a month ago and see the improvements I've made so far. Here's a preview! More to come! ?

Read this week's blog to checkout the art asset changes and upcoming dinosaurs! https://blog.toyowlet.com/2018/09/devblog-4-grass-improved-tiles-more.html

Very nice! Love the artwork with the caribou in the background. Joined the discord ?

Thanks @KingofCrows! ? I want to make 4 more dinosaurs before Alpha, so if anyone would like to suggest any let me know! Late Cretaceous only.

Haven't worked on the game too much the past few days, but I did do a few things behind the scenes like the Player Status system. Basically health, hunger, thirst, etc stats that decay over time. Also made a checklist for some features I want to complete before Alpha. You can view them here! https://blog.toyowlet.com/2018/09/devblog-3-milestones-to-alpha.html And a new dinosaur! ?

Hi guys! So I wanted to share a site I found. It's called Modd.io. https://www.modd.io/ I haven't looked at it too much as I'm at work, but it looks like through this platform, you can create your own browser based multiplayer game and bring it to life. It's more than a point-and-click. You can actually have a player character and move it around in a world and interact with other players and objects in the world. There's tutorials on the site to get you started and there's other games listed on the site made through the platform. Apparently the first user to finish a game on the site is making $10/day and made their game in one day. $300 a month for a few hours work doesn't sound too bad! The platform is relatively new from what I've read (a year old or so). I'm going to check it out more when I get home since I'm a bit curious! If anyone delves into it before I get home please let me know how it is. ? I figured I'd share this here as I know some people who aren't programmers are looking for ways to create their own browser based games. It sounds promising!

Heyo! I've been working on the inventory system, harvestable objects, item spawning, audio feedback, and more! My amazing boyfriend made some new sounds for the dinosaurs. Unfortunately the new raptor sounds aren't in this video, but I'll be sure to share them another time! I've also made new cursors (also not pictured in the vid). The new cursors are such a small addition but really tie in the graphics, and it's nice to get visual feedback when hovering the mouse on certain items.

First Screenshot Saturday Sunday! Blog link: https://blog.toyowlet.com/2018/08/screenshot-saturday-1-inventory.html Inventory UI, Day/night Cycle, and reworked tiles previews! ?

Hello! Little update! Later tonight I am going to try streaming my remake of some tiles (and possibly create new ones). I may also work on some map/area creation. If anyone would like to watch, follow me on Mixer. You can also join my Discord (The Roost) where I will post an announcement some time before I stream. ? Also I have decided not to update on the game as much as I was, since it takes time away from me actually working on it, plus I think it would just look better to release a bunch of cool stuff at once instead of sporadically haha. I will continue posting here and on my blog with weeklyish updates! Thanks!

Actually no, I'm more of an (pixel) artist. I've always wanted to make my own game, and when I found the adoptables scene and my art got better I made my own sites using premade scripts. I have a very small background in code. I started off with HTML/CSS and then tinkered with the PHP scripts that I used for my sites. Those sites ended up being abandoned or given away for various reasons throughout the years. I really love creating things and touching and learning all the different aspects of it (art, coding, sounds, etc). Yet again recently I found myself wanting to make another game, but I knew if it was web-based I would give up on it. I love browser based games, but I wanted to challenge myself more and make a video game. It's something I always wanted to do but was never sure I could. I researched some game engines (unity, unreal, etc) and stumbled upon GameMakerStudio 2. I've been learning as I go and heavily relying on tutorials and tips right now. There's a nice community behind it and the interface is really beginner friendly and I'm just really enjoying it so far. ^^ I've pushed myself to work on the game at least an hour a day (which usually turns into more lol) whether it's coding or doing art. At least getting something done each day!

Early wall placing test. ?

AI dinos now broadcast randomly as they walk around. ? Luckily my boyfriend is a sound designer so he will work on some better dino sounds and stuff for me in the future! But wanted to test out the system here. ^^ @Boltgreywing It won't be a site, but rather a full downloadable PC game that will likely be available on Steam if they accept it. ?

Beginnings of planting system and added some footsie step sounds. ? Pictured are the fern, date, and musa crop types.

Turns out I need to think of a new name for the game! I had researched the name before, but was doing research again and it seems there's about 2-3 other games and even an encyclopedia using the name. Not too much of a biggie though, as luckily I didn't have a logo made yet or really pushed the name out much! I'm not going to trouble myself on a name right now. Perhaps in the future, as the community grows, I'll do a name suggestion contest or something like that. ? Speaking of community, I've made some social media links! If these links aren't allowed here a mod can please just delete or edit this post. Anyways feel free to join or follow. I try to post updates to these sites often. Discord (very new, only me there atm lol) - https://discord.gg/JM6h4Qm Twitter - https://twitter.com/ToyOwlet Blog - http://blog.toyowlet.com/

Haha thanks @juliet! I've since fixed the issue of those little guys (Aquilops) mauling the player. ? Working on a farming system and break/place objects mechanic next. Also none spawned in this video (I set the chances to like 1/1,000 or something), but the dinos shown here now have a mechanic that spawns them with random alternate skins. Right now I have green, melanistic, and albino mutations. This will be expanded upon more when a breeding system is implemented. Just a little flavor at the moment.

>inputs new code What have I done?

@Bravefoot Hehe yup! I realize my art style kind of has a cheery vibe to it, but my intentions are to make a more mature game despite that. Hence the corpses and baby dino killing. ? I'm sure my art will improve and adapt to my vision as I work on the game too.

@KingofCrows I haven't completely worked out the mechanics yet on feeding/taming/raising babies, but yes the idea so far is that there will be many types of plants and meats that certain species favor. For example, an Ankylo might favor a flower that grows only in the beach/coastal biome. And a Rex baby favors Ankylo meat or perhaps favors just the eggs, which will be very hard to obtain. Every species will have its own plant/meat type it likes and no two dino species will like the same food. I may even make special "baby food" recipes (kinda like ARK kibble) but undecided yet. Speaking of flowers, I have plans to make a majority of the herbivores favor them. The Cretaceous period, which is what the game setting is based in, was when flowering plants first started evolving. That's what I'll be working on next, so if anyone has suggestions for flowers and their mother plants (that were present in the Cretaceous) feel free to shoot them my way! I thought research on Cretaceous dino species would consume a lot of my time but whenever I research Cretaceous plant life I find myself with 30 or so tabs open, yikes! ?

@Bravefoot At the moment I have the game planned to have a static map and not really be generated procedurally, hence the one buildable area. I might allow all areas to be built upon, but some areas (like the swamp above for example) the player will have to get creative since space is scarce. Likewise building in a desert area or snow area will present their own problems with heat and cold. Hmmm, you got me thinking now lol. First preview of 3 different crop types. All from the fern family. They can be farmed for fern leaves, fiddleheads, and tubors that can be eaten or used to grow babies of whatever species that favors them. They will appear in the wild but not give much food back to the player. Fertilizing, watering, and perhaps ridding them of weeds will yield the max food.