Globe Trotters

• 

  The Start

• 

  Transitioning between Regions

• 

  Interacting with NPCs

• 

  The Map

Inspiration

I love top-down, retro style games, and wanted to build one a video game for the first time! I wanted to build a game that allows people to glimpse into other cultures, and have a super diverse map. My hope is that this game can educate people on the life, traditions, and perspectives of people from different backgrounds.

What it does

The game is a top-down game where you are controlling a "traveller". This traveller goes around, exploring different regions, which are mini-continents, and interact with NPC's, who provide interesting conversation.

How we built it

The game uses around 4 different types mechanics. Sprites, a dialogue system, a movement system, and collision boxes. Everything was built in GDevelop, a game engine. I chose it because its very beginner friendly, and allowed easy(ish) implementation for the movement and dialogue system. The map and collision boxes were made using GDevelop's editor, and the assets were made with Piskel.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge by far was making assets for the game. The initial plan was to simply grab everything from online, and if needed, use an AI image generator like DALL-E to generate assets. The first roadblock was finding out that a lot of assets online didn't really fit the game, and the second was that the AI generated assets didn't fit either, especially because some sprites needed animation. This meant I had to spend a LOT more time making assets myself than I anticipated, and had to cut out 2 planned regions, as well as more interactive conversations and enterable houses. Another one was the dialogue system, Godot treats its variables a bit differently than traditional. I had to relearn them to an extent.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am super proud of the 3 regions that I finished. I tried to make them as cohesive and engaging as possible, and I think they hit that mark. The world map, while quite small, feels a lot bigger than it actually is thanks to how populated it is.

What we learned

I learned a ton about making video games, and it was kind of reassuring to find out that, even for more complicated games, a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the game engine. This allows the developer to focus more on the mechanics, creativity, and charm of the game, which is what the user wants and what makes a game enticing.

What's next for Globe Trotters

I have a pretty big list of things that I wanted to add that I didn't get a chance to: 2 more regions, Brazil and the Wild West, more in-depth conversations/dialogue plus more personality for the NPCs, different interactables in the map, like collectable items, enterable buildings, ect, and finally, better assets. While I am happy with how it turned out, with more time, more cohesive assets would definitely make the game better!

Built With

• c
• gdevelop
• piskel