Heya!
So, it's been way too long since my last post, which obviously isn't great for a new blog. But I felt like writing this (from my phone) just to explain what's been going on and what the future holds for Gaming Daydreams.
First things first. The blog is very much still a thing, and I'm only getting started. However, the last few months have been fairly hectic, as I moved to a new apartment while working full time and handling some personal stuff. Also, I started writing another project that takes a good chunk of any free time that I don't sink into the very thing that inspires this blog: video games. That hasn't left me much time or energy to update this blog. Right now I'm finishing my first out of two vacation weeks from my internship, simply trying to recover.
Regardless, new things are coming very soon. I already have a couple of pretty interesting (if I may say so myself) game ideas that I'm excited to write about. Despite the summer hiatus that has taken hold of this blog, I'm thinking of keeping to the monthly game concept post going forward even if it could sometimes mean shorter posts. Although, I might occasionally write multiple posts about the same idea if I feel like the first one did not cover all the bases I wanted to.
In addition, I will aim to fill the empty air with additional posts about whatever gaming related things I come up with.
Up first: Development Updates! I recently started playing the roleplaying game Divinity: Original Sin 2. I'm still only at the very early game, but already I've been looking into making my own content for it. The developer has put out their development kit Divinity Engine 2 for all their players to use, which lets basically anyone with enough determination to create their own maps, quests and even campaigns. This shouldn't be confused with the Game Master mode that that was also added to the game, which allows players to create and host D&D-style campaigns for other players. Unlike what I had at first imagined, that mode is a more simplified tool that's meant to allow dynamic multiplayer scenarios with one player as the titular Game Master running the show for other players, with no ability to create NPC dialogue or more expansive quests to play in singleplayer. The Divinity Engine toolkit on the other hand is a lot more complicated to use but allows modders to do a lot more in-depth singleplayer and co--op content with seemingly pretty much the same tools the devs themselves use.
So, over the following weeks and months, I will delve into making my own custom quest and storyline for the game, using Divinity Engine's tools and premade assets. During the process, I will write updates about how the journey is going, until I have a finished story mod to release on the game's Steam Workshop.
I'm not confident enough to promise any schedule or time frame of how long it will take. While I'm going to only use in-game assets made by the developers instead of trying to model or animate my own (possible exceptions being a map or two), I already have a fairly ambitious idea for the story I want to tell within the game. Learning to use the tools and write the programming language properly will take time for someone with as little development experience like me. However, I should (hopefully) be able to make a more polished end product in less time than I could do by trying to build a whole game from scratch with some other engine like Unity or Unreal.
There you have it. A plan of some sort for the future. I'll try to whip out the second game idea during next week before my vacation ends and I go back to full work days as an intern. Like with the first one, I'll give you a hint of what's it going to be: it definitely will be a great journey.
