Hello. As promised, this devlog will be about Demonette Playtime! Namely for the idea of one button.
If you have read my past devlog about game design, you know that the idea decides a lot of things for game development. But if then I was talking about the basic idea for the game (such as the story and the goal of the game), today I am writing about the idea for the gameplay.
What is the idea behind the button? This is the idea that the entire gameplay will be tied to only one button (touchpad or left mouse button). You might think that this is a fairly simple gameplay mechanic and should be implemented fairly easily, right? I thought so too until I started making this game.
No matter how strange it sounds, even with one button you can do many things. Clicking, releasing, holding the button, double-clicking, dragging an object, etc. That's all I'm using for the game right now and the more stuff I add the more complex this one button mechanic gets.
Here is, for example, the situation I wrote about in Discord: removing/closing the cap from the flashlight:
Here is a list of actions you need to take to remove/insert the battery into the flashlight:
Open inventory
Press the button on the flashlight object or drag the battery to the flashlight to combine them.
In the menu, open the flashlight cover (if it is closed)
Drag the battery in the correct rotation (double click to change the rotation)
Close the lid and exit the menu.
And it seems that it is not so difficult, but in fact this whole process is locked on only one button! But that's not all! Since I don't want the flashlight object to be collision-free and the battery can pass through its walls, I added a collision check for objects that are dragged in this menu! This already makes drag more interesting:
Not bad right? And this is just one situation for the Combine menu. This is a separate menu, but what about the game world?
Character movement and interaction with objects are also implemented through one button:
You can move by pressing or holding a button, you can click on items to pick them up, you can also drag items from the quick menu to drop them on objects in the game to use special interactions.
As you can see, this idea is fully realized. But why did I decide to make the game this way? For example, the same movement can be implemented using arrows, the menu can also be called using a button (TAB or ESC), it would be easier, since when everything is controlled by one button, a situation arises when instead of selecting an item, the character goes to the point...
And this is a really important question, since this idea of a single button actually limits the possible mechanics, but at the same time allows to invent something new! If you limit yourself in development, you can come up with workarounds to implement the mechanics you want to see in your game.
For example, the rotation of objects. At first, I thought that rotation/scrolling could be implemented only by turning the mouse wheel. I couldn't come up with an alternative for quite some time, but this mechanic was necessary because it makes for more interesting puzzles. And after brainstorming, I still understood that you can double-click! It was right under my nose, but I just ignored that double-clicks existed. I honestly can't remember a game where this was used at all!
And as funny as it may sound, the moments of enlightenment and realizing that you've solved a problem in such a simple way ... that's one of the reasons why I love game development! Of course, my game is primarily an R18 game, all these mechanics may seem redundant, but I'm trying to create the best possible gaming experience despite the R18 content. By the way, for R18 content:
The new pose is still being drawn, as I need to draw a lot of non-R18 animations in addition to it:
Therefore, I apologize for the delays in the development of new versions. I'm trying to make this game as enjoyable as possible, so I'm still polishing some mechanics right now.