Arcanus Cella Games

In the previous post, I talked about outsourcing stuff that I’m no good at to speed along dev time, in this post I talk about how I went about finding a writer to flesh out my outline and the next steps for me while I wait for the delivery.

When I first had this story idea, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing the rest of it. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been reading all sorts of writing books and such. So I felt like I would be able to, but man, the idea of just paying someone who has put in more time than me in this skill. I just couldn’t shake it. It would make the game better than my poorly mangled story and rough dialogue.

Head-hunting for a good story mangler

I went on fiverr and looked for a young adult ghost writer. I feel like this story has a certain edginess to it and it would fit in the voicing of a young adult writer instead of something like an edgy adult pulp (which also sounds interesting but not with the aesthetics that I have planned).

If I had a bit of advice for someone who needs to do this quick and on a budget, it’d be to find new sellers with good reviews for the specific service you’re looking for. Sometimes it’s best to get even more specific about what the work you want done in your seller searches. For example maybe you don’t need a fully fleshed out novel, and just need a script. It might be less expensive or you might find someone who fits the project better.

One thing I’m worried about is if I want to change the story further along in development. But I suppose that’s what beta players are for? The service does have one revision allowed for the story but I imagine we’ll have long since parted ways for me to use that lol

So I’ve pulled the trigger and after $50 of my hard earned cash, I’ve sent off the outline with small particulars about what I want for the setting and such. The wait time for the order is about 10 days so in that time I can start developing the world a bit more.

On to the preliminary world.

I bought a particularly big sketchbook with thicker paper to handle markers (which i have collected a few of) and its perfect for slapping ideas down.

I’ve changed the station from an asteroid station to one that mines asteroids with a ring like structure. Idk if it’s scientifically sound but after learning that asteroids are probably loosely held rubble I was a bit bummed and changed course a bit.

As stated before, the aesthetic of the game is going to be an isometric one, I have made basic prelim shapes to block out scenes in godot, but it didn’t seem to be a pipeline fit.

Y-sorting becomes an issue in the editor and while I could work around it, I feel it’s probably best that I just draw the static background as one image and just draw the navigation shape in godot. As for props that are interactable or what have you can be actual game objects.

The first build?

With that being decided, I need to get comfy with building 2d isometric boards and making the first playable build to get across what the whole game is about in one level/couple of minutes. Everything I might need is already in popochiu so really, this is just me getting familiar with the tool and being ready for when the story comes back and I can start scripting the story out and building boards. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So until the next post!