Starting Out

     THE COW KNIGHT DEV BLOG

Starting Out

    Welcome to my dev blog for my upcoming game "Cow Knight". So what is Cow Knight? It's an old school JRPG that I'm building using the RPG MAKER MV engine. The game is about the main character Beau, the titular Cow Knight who wants to start his day with a glass of milk, only to find he has run out. This seemingly innocuous event is what begins an epic journey that will take Beau across the land of Bovinae (pictured below). Along the way he will gather 3 companions who will help him accomplish his goals.

moo

    So who am I? My name is Phil and I am just a guy who would like to put out a game. I have basically zero game dev experience and just want to do this as a hobby. I have had the MV engine for many years and have started little projects from time to time, but this time I really want to finish a game! I've been steadily putting in a few hours every night into it for the past couple of weeks and I hope to continue this trend until I'm done.

    Why Cow Knight? The first ever game I made with MV was called Cow Knight and it was a silly little game just to get familiar with the engine and to show to a handful of my friends. The story for this latest version is much more fleshed out and the game is going to be much bigger overall. The narrative for this story doesn't always take itself seriously and I wanted a game with a very controlled scope. Numerous failed projects got too big before I could barely get started and I overwhelmed myself.

    The main thing I am currently working on is getting through the main quest. The world map above has all the key locations and I want to be able to go from point A to point B in the main quest in one go. To do that I've created all maps needed for progression with little to no detail which will be added later, and scripted only key events to move the main quest forward. I'm about 75% of the way through and doing it this way has really helped to keep me focused and feel accomplished with how much of the work is out of the way. I will still have to go back and update the dialogue and maps but I just want the main game to be playable as quickly as possible.

    I'm worried about what to do next once that is complete, do I start work on combat/enemies/stats, do I flesh out the maps, create items, side quests... the list goes on! One thing that has helped me a lot with all these competing priorities is using Trello. Anytime I think of something for the game I plot it down in Trello. It has really helped me visualize the scope of what I'm doing and keeping everything organized makes me feel much less overwhelmed. I think it is important to write things down as it frees up space in your head for more ideas!

One of my Trello boards

    So this blog is just another way for me to get thoughts about this game out of my head and keep some kind of track of my progress. I plan to do one of these every Wednesday and in terms of content it really is going to just be whatever is floating around in my head. Don't know if anyone will ever read this but if you do, say hi in the comments and let me know what your fave JRPG is and why.

Moo Moo,

    Phil