Development has reached a point where all of the important scene simulations in My Blog are in place. The main scene UIs and their functionality are coded, and the game can now be played from start to finish. It still has no story or quests, but the day-to-day operation of a blog is largely simulated.
Taking stock
My Blog is a small game about running a personal independent blog. It follows a blogger from 2000 to 2025 as they spend 25 years working their way up in the blogging world, eventually becoming a well-known figure and earning reputation and money.
I'm writing some of this down as a memory aid, but also to prepare for the main storyline and random quests that will come later.
The current core stats fall into a few groups:
- Blogger stats: level and rank, plus numeric skills such as writing, technology, literature, programming, and drawing. There is also a money stat.
- Blog stats: traffic, RSS subscriptions, article favorites, ad network income, blog alliance matters, hosting and domain details, and investments or personal finance.
- Event line: the timeline from 2000 to 2025.
Main quests, side quests, and random events will be built around these stats. I also plan to add a pyramid-style achievement system.
The difficult part
Right now I don't have a concrete design for the main quest. I have some ideas, but they aren't specific enough and need more polishing. The bigger question is one that many independent bloggers are already thinking about and dealing with every day: what are we actually running independent blogs for?
I could feed these thoughts to AI and get some references, but I'd rather think it through myself and give the game a good beginning and ending.
What comes next
Once the main storyline, random events, and achievement system are finished, the game's code will be essentially complete. I obviously want that to happen as quickly as possible. AI helps a lot here: tedious coding, component usage, and bug fixing can be handed off or sped up, which saves a great deal of time.
I'm still hoping the release won't slip past winter break. Fingers crossed—Buddha, please.