So since dev work on Station Zeta wrapped up, I’ve been working on a new project. To give you a little taste, here’s the current state of Wilderness:
I know there’s not a lot of context there, but at the high level, Wilderness is an exploratory roguelite set in a post-apocalyptic world that’s a bit of a mashup of Wasteland and Nausicaa. It’s got base-building elements, a randomized world to explore, a “mini-tactics” combat system built around party composition and skill growth, and a narrative tied into the meta-progression that develops the deeper you push into the world. Oh, it’s even got some Hades-style relationship development with the various party leaders you can recruit.
The big thing about Wilderness is, though, I’m shelving the whole thing.
The Fine Art of Not Burying Yourself
Some of you might be wondering why I’m putting aside something that I’ve clearly put a lot of time into, while others of you were probably already shaking your heads as soon as you got the features list. The truth is, Wilderness is, at the moment, just far too big for me.
When I started, it was with the relatively simple concept of mashing together old-school turn-based Final Fantasy style combat with a Slay the Spire-esque run system. As I worked with that prototype, I began to iterate on these concepts to figure out what was actually fun. The combat shifted from the simple FF-style into something with more interesting player choices. The node-based map blossomed into the more fully explorable hex-based system. And the narrative began to take shape in my mind, and from that grew more ideas about the world, the people, and how it could grow over multiple playthroughs.
This was all great - and very exciting to work on - and after a few months I had a pretty playable prototype. But from there, sitting back and looking at what I had, the reality began to sink in: I’d let the scope of the game far outstrip what I could realistically accomplish on my own. Everything had gotten way too big, and I was already feeling frustrated I couldn’t produce what I wanted to make this as good as I knew it could be. The art needs were growing immensely and I couldn’t even settle on basic character designs I was happy with. The writing needs were exploding, and while I loved doing it, it meant other things were being ignored. That’s not even getting into all the dev and design work required to take this from a prototype into something that could wow people.
As a solo developer at the moment, I was digging a massive hole for myself both emotionally and from a productivity standpoint. If I didn’t scale back somehow, I was going to crash and burn.
A well- timed trip forced me away from the computer for a few days, and gave me some time to think.
That’s when it came to me.
Starting, But Not From Scratch
A whole new idea, but one that would let me take a lot of the work I’d done on Wilderness already and reduce, reuse, and recycle it. It was also an idea I was able to draft out from start to finish, with a full arc of the game. This alone felt so much tighter, so much more of a well-defined, manageable core. I even had a name already: Last Call at the Bleakwatch Tavern.
Last Call is still a roguelite, but one focused almost entirely around the combat system I’d built for Wilderness. Rather than a sprawling narrative and a long-term metaprogression, Last Call is focused on rapid-fire decision making and snappy tactical combat.
In a matter of days, I’ve been able to put together a prototype covering all of the core pieces of the game. More importantly, even in this basic state, the prototype already feels fun.
It’s easy to become attached to ideas, even when you start to realize they are just too big for you (at the moment). I’m still immensely proud of the work I’ve put into Wilderness, and I hope to someday come back and give it the proper attention it deserves. But I also have to recognize my own limitations, and focus less on getting upset about all big things I feel I’m not doing well enough and instead focus on finding things I can absolutely smash.
Far from feeling like a failure, I can look at Wilderness and see all the things I was able to take away from it. Even if I don’t use every bit of what I learned in Last Call, this is all skills and knowledge that will be valuable again in the future.
So, stay tuned for more on Last Call. It’s a whole new adventure, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about. But if at any point I start to talk about “Hades-style relationship building”, feel free to shout at me.