Day 1: Humble beginnings

That's right, today is the day! October 1st is here, which means it's time to start my Devtober 2021 journey! I am very excited about being able to participate in this fun challenge. I am not known for having many finished projects, so having an incentive to actually sit down and finish something over the course of a month is a very welcome change.

Now, I've been out of the loop when it comes to gamedev for a long while. I've only really participated in a single game jam in 2020. Other than that, all my gamedev knowledge comes from 20212 and 2013... this will not only be a chance to finish a game for me, but also re-learn the tools and catch up on the industry-standard practices and skills one needs to have to make a video game as a solo developer.

And that's how my adventure started. I went into it with a rough idea - I want to make a strategy game with RPG elements and a fun twist, which I'm not going to reveal just yet. Over the course of the day today the idea started taking a more tangible shape and now I feel like I have a place to start. So over the course of the day I familiarized myself with the basics of Unity 2020 - the game engine I will be using for this project. I haven't really had a chance to use the new render pipelines, so I spent an embarrassingly long time setting an URP scene. I installed the new input system, as well as Cinemachine, which I figured could be very useful packages in designing the main control system in the game. I also found a few assets on the Asset Store that could help me prototype my idea.

The only thing I really managed to put together in the project is a simple rts-like camera mockup. It's not optimal, but it helped me with learning the basics of cinemachine, which is always worthwhile. Today was very hectic and I don't have too much to show for it, but I feel like I've learned a lot, and that's the most important part ;)