The VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙Feb 20

I don't know anything about making a video game, but I really... really... REALLY want to make my own some day, before I die.

Are there any paths for a person who doesn't know coding and isn't sure they can learn it at this point to make a game?

I was learning Godot before I got Long Covid and it sort of erased that info out of my brain and filled the place that it used to be with static that seems to be prohibiting me from writing new video game learning data to myself.

I have an idea for a story, a setting, multiple game mechanics, and have been using my pixel art drawing challenge thing as a way to try and generate some monsters to fill the world. I just have no clue how to actually... make it.

I've considered just going the "Vermis" route, making the walkthroughs and guides that would go with a game that doesn't actually exist as a sort of art project that would make my game kiiiiinda exist, but I feel like that's setting my bar lower than I want it to be.

Thoughts? Help?

#Indiegame #videogames

Show threadThe VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙Feb 20

It's your birthday, and your parents are going to take you out to eat, but first they stop at a seemingly abandoned mall that was apparently very emotionally significant to them because they need to pick something up from one of the still-operational stores.

Your dad says that it's going to be like 20 minutes and gives you a handful of tarnished tokens that are for the arcade in the back of the mall that he still had from his youth.

You find the arcade, it's still open but most of the games are off. You find a photo booth that still has power, and you decide why not, so you insert the coins and push the button... and then you see this weird, ancient symbol glowing on the mirror inside the booth, and there's a flash of light...

Show threadThe VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙Feb 20

...and when the light dims, you find yourself in the same booth, but in a different place and time. You're now in The Deeper Well Mall, a sort of extra-dimensional mall outside of normal time and space that connects all reality.

Only... the mall is in kinda shitty shape, a bunch of stuff does not work, stores are closed down, fountains are off, plants are withered.

You learn that the mall management abandoned it a long time back, and it's been kind of running on autopilot ever since, with more systems breaking as they failed, including the teleporters (disguised as photo booths), which is what you accidentally used to get here. If you want to get home, you're going to have to repair the teleporter system

And to do that, you're going to need to collect the 8 pieces of the "Deeper Well Key", an ancient sigil that just so happens to look like the Cool S, but is now split up with different factions and individuals in the mall holding the pieces.

Show threadThe VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙

But you don't have to do it alone!

The world is full of these little creatures... stupid little creatures called BakaChibiMon. You are aware of them - a little too aware of them - because in your world, they were a video game craze thing for a few years and your parents collected them and were insane for them (they're basically Skylanders)

BUT, here in the Deeper Well Mall, they can both manifest physically (turning from a figurine into their representative monster) and digitally (you can connect them to various mall systems by just plugging the figurine into a slot)

Using your newly found tiny monster allies, you have to restore mall systems and fix problems for the residents to slowly work your way through and recover all 8 pieces of the Key so that you can escape this infinite mall dungeon.

And... you're increasingly suspicious that your parents not only knew all about this, but maybe sent you here on purpose?

Feb 20 at 6:37pmWeb
Show threadThe VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙Feb 20

Gameplay is a mix of concepts.

The main overworld is top down, 2D mall exploration (think the older pixel based Pokemon games) where you're doing overworld puzzle solving, fetch quests, and talking to NPCs.

There is a battle mechanic, not unlike Pokemon, but it's not as complicated or nuianced because it's only one of the many systems in place. You'll occasionally find yourself battling other people who also have their own BakaChibiMon figurines.

Using the BakaChibiMon figurines to interact with the mall systems itself opens up various mini-games. Side-scrolling platformers, puzzle games, shmups, sports games - basically, a variety of arcade-y mini-games that have you directly controlling the BakaChibiMon as it interacts with the "mall".

For example, to fix the fountain, it might be a Pipe Puzzle minigame. And after you've fixed the fountain, that unlocks the game in the actual arcade too, and you can keep playing it and getting higher scores to get more rewards