Ed's Blog

Plan for a Game That I Want To Make about Dinosaurs

I like playing video games with my son, who has not yet developed the requisite muscle memory to play them by himself. I think it's a muscle memory thing; his fine motor skills are otherwise pretty good, and he has no trouble with working out how his button presses correspond to what happens on the screen. He just can't aim well enough to get the guy to go where he wants. He also struggles to do more than one thing at the same time, so platforming or shooting bad guys while dodging is out of the question. He is also very quick to get frustrated and give up.

None of these are unreasonable for a four year old. He's a good lad.

I want to make a game anyway, something simple so I don't get overwhelmed and or lose steam, so why not something he could enjoy? So I found some really cool looking free dinosaur model assets on itch.io and started looking for 3D tutorials for Godot.

The Plan as she lies thus far

One level, single flat plane that loops around
You are the Parasaurolophus (character select to come later)
No obstacles that prevent storming off in whatever direction you want (e.g trees are ok as long as you glance off them and carry on)
Minimal interaction - maybe a jump, maybe a roar, maybe a fart.
NPC dinosaurs mill about and chat to you (I want to do some voice work)
Camera: fixed. Not sure what that means just yet - the point is, it's not player-controlled
Music maybe!

Really the basics. It's hardly a "game" even - just a little sandbox where you run and jump as a dinosaur. I think he would like that. We can add more stuff later.

Ed's Blog

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