Hello everyone!

I will use this post as my devlog and post some updates from time to time.
By creating this devlog, I hope to keep my motivation up.
Feel free to comment!

I had 2 game ideas and I had 2 engines I liked to use, but I couldn't decide which one I should make/use.
Finally I decided, time to get started!

So what is Bauerhofen?
Germans might be wondering if I can't correctly write the word Bauernhof (farm). When my sister was young she couldn't say Bauernhof correctly, this was 30 years ago and somehow I still remember this and for me it sounds like the name of a tiny medieval town.
And that's basically the kind of 3d game I want to create.

What is planned?
My first step will be to create a very basic game.
The player can build (for now predefined) buildings to attract villagers. Villagers live and work there. They cut trees or hunt animals. At night they go to sleep.

Getting started
For the terrain I'm using Terrain3D with 2 ugly handpainted textures and painted some "test mountains". I turned autoshading on, so I don't need to paint the steep/flat parts manually.
I created a character, a statemachine, a player controller and for now hacky implementations of character stair movement and footsteps. I set the characters up in a way that the players and the ai can both control them.

    trizZzle What is planned?
    My first step will be to create a very basic game.
    The player can build (for now predefined) buildings to attract villagers. Villagers live and work there. They cut trees or hunt animals. At night they go to sleep.

    Very interesting. Are you trying to implement something like Living City?

    Since my project has common features with your idea, I have a lot of questions, but I will start with the most basic ones.

    1. How many residents are planned?
    2. What era is it intended to recreate (modern or ancients)?
    3. Will the inhabitants be detailed and different (character generator) or the same (schematic)?
    4. Will the economy be implemented (the village cannot be fed by hunting alone — agriculture is needed) or will it be a game convention?

        Tomcat

        I read your post about Living City. I guess I'm trying to implement such a thing. Trying is the correct word. 😃
        The reason for trying is, that I really like those kind of sandbox city building games, but if you play those with only a handful of friends the village feels so lifeless and empty. And of course sometimes it would be nice to have some npc that does the jobs you don't want to do.

        1. I'm really not sure. It would be nice to have up to 50 residents per village, but this of course depends on how good the performance will be and if this makes sense (they need houses to sleep in and how many houses can a village have without impacting the performance too much).
        2. Around 1800, because at some point I want to add simple firearms and explosives like dynamite. Some trains would be nice too, but at this point this is way too ambitous.
        3. For now they will be the same. 1 male and 1 female model. When I have the basic gameplay, I will have a look at this again. Having different hair, beards and cloth would be nice to have.
        4. This is something I need to test, but I don't want the game to be punishing or too realistic. Right now I'm thinking of food and water giving a bonus to health or stamina max values and increased regeneration. Villagers (and the player) won't starve to death. Villagers will eat from time to time, just to make them feel more alive. Both hunting and farming will be options to get food.

        What is the current state of your Living City?

            trizZzle What is the current state of your Living City?

            A Living City (or a Sims-like Life Simulator) is a long shot. I “come at it from the other side”, as you can read about in the forum thread. First the characters with settings and needs, then the collective (crowd). The sequence is as follows: Character Generator -> Apartment Life -> Farm -> Village -> City -> Country. I can outline in more detail if you have the desire, but your idea is at the Farm -> Village passage

            We are working on a character generator right now. But, you know, it's not very conducive to thoughtful and painstaking work to live in a country that started a war and is now safely losing it with a bang. It's too stressful. So I don't risk making predictions about expected progress.

            trizZzle 2. Around 1800

            This is probably the easiest time for realization in the game - the dependence on nature is already weak enough that it could be neglected and not too strongly developed complex for simulation technologies.

            • How much land area would you expect your project to require?
                12 days later

                002

                Well, turns out I'm still not sure if I want to do this in Godot or not... There are some workflows I really don't like and some I really like.
                However I tested some things:

                I added the Sky3D plugin (what would I do without the amazing addons from Tokisan Games?)
                Now I have the windows xp wallpaper to walkaround in:

                  Tomcat I've played Hochablass some time ago. The night sky was really nice with all the constellations. 🙂
                  I even looked at google maps what that area looks like in real life. It's pretty close to what is in the game.