Disclaimer - These devlogs are one part of a University assignment that Styx is being developed for, so any stilted wording or weird inclusions can be traced back to that fact.

STYX Devlog #1

First things first - What is Styx?

It's that river in the Greek underworld - and the name of a game I'm making with three friends. The original idea was conceived in 2020, but I never had the motivation to create it - until now! Here's the premise:

• Single-player
• 2D pixel art, with a Diablo-ish camera placement
• Control Charon and his boat, ferrying souls down the river Styx 
• Use the boat's cannons, harpoons, and paddles to defend yourself
• Enemies straight outta Greek mythology, with unique twists
• Keep the boat, passengers, and yourself intact
• 5-7 levels of wave survival

What do we have here, then?

In these devlogs, I'll mostly be focusing on (and chattering about) my own roles as the team's game designer, level designer, and producer - still, there will be many references to the amazing programming and artwork done by the team around me. Cheers, lads!

At the time of writing, we're exactly halfway through our first 'sprint' - each one will last about two weeks, and each of us has a list of tasks to get done by the end of the fortnight, with the possibility to take additional tasks from the expansive product backlog.

A week ago, we had some disjointed ideas and a pitch presentation - since then, I've set personal tasks for this sprint that have mostly been game-design-document related.

Progress

• Set up an Itch.io page for the project (If you're reading this, then I did a decent job of it, too!)
• Set up a Github page for the project
• Gathered gameplay inspirations in a moodboard
• Wrote design document sections for ship combat, melee combat, player abilities, and upgrades
• Created some interesting-looking mock-ups for certain screens and ideas, seen below
• Assigned concept art tasks to the team's artists, and some prototype tasks to the team's programmer

Thoughts

I'm happy with our design document - most ideas will see changes, but the game sounds better with each idea and iteration that gets written down. Upon reflection, I should've fleshed out combat ideas sooner, as our prototypes are already benefitting from a clear vision of what should (and shouldn't) be included.

There's room to improve our team's communication, with our lecturer mentioning an idea to give each artist their own 'area' to focus on; the workload seems even so far, but when we leave the concept stage, it'll definitely be worth leaving specific 'art areas' to one artist or the other.

It's also important not to get too ahead of myself; my previous projects have been two weeks long at best, but the extra time allotted to this project shouldn't be used as a free pass to let 'scope creep' go wild.

Going Forward

My main focus before the next devlog is to restructure our communication channels - a team with efficient communication can support each other better, quickly squash issues as they arise, and potentially work faster as they know exactly what's left to be done.

I'd also like to have contributed to the project in a more meaningful way, be it planning a level with interesting enemy encounters or helping put together a prototype that matches my ideas in the design document.

That's everything for my first devlog - thanks for reading!