Adventures in Game Development
Apr. 16th, 2026 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamebyrdI've had this idea for a while about creating an incremental/idle game with a web browser interface, like Kittens Game, Theory of Magic or Farm RPG. Something about not having to render the game inside a box or separate environment appeals to me a lot, but also I already have some web development skills so there's bias there.
I tried to actually do this game jam style last year, using Svelte Incremental Game Template as a base, but by the end of the day instead of creating a game I'd created half a game engine and nothing was functional. So I gave up on that one.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I again had a day to myself and this time I decided to start over and build it function-by-function instead of creating an entire engine all at once. I decided to keep using Svelte as my framework, but build everything myself using MainLoop.js (via Svelte Mainloop) to handle keeping everything in sync. Svelte makes updating what's happening on the page based on changes in my game model very easy so I could really focus in on the game features and functions.
And this time it worked! I had a functioning prototype very quickly, and then I could incrementally (hah) add features as I went along.
So what about the actual game?
My idea was to build a Cafe Management Sim that's something of a cross between a Cookie Clicker and Neko Atsume, where instead of cats* you are "collecting" customers, who are attracted by your menu items and other features of your cafe. I want it to be very community-focused - instead of the game deciding on available upgrades based on currency, customers will suggest new menu items or offer to stock you with specialty roasted coffee or cookies or whatever. There are milestone events/upgrades based on number of customers visited in day (upgrades increase your min/max visitors in a day and it chooses a random number of visited customers between those numbers daily).
All that's what I've built so far. I want customers to have dialogue events that would allow me to tell a story on top of the mechanics, and it's at this point I have realised a fatal flaw in my plan:
Now I need to create characters and actually write a story. /o\
(Also a long term goal is a graphical interface but that's far future!)
* Depending on decisions made with the graphical interface the customers may still be cats.
I tried to actually do this game jam style last year, using Svelte Incremental Game Template as a base, but by the end of the day instead of creating a game I'd created half a game engine and nothing was functional. So I gave up on that one.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I again had a day to myself and this time I decided to start over and build it function-by-function instead of creating an entire engine all at once. I decided to keep using Svelte as my framework, but build everything myself using MainLoop.js (via Svelte Mainloop) to handle keeping everything in sync. Svelte makes updating what's happening on the page based on changes in my game model very easy so I could really focus in on the game features and functions.
And this time it worked! I had a functioning prototype very quickly, and then I could incrementally (hah) add features as I went along.
So what about the actual game?
My idea was to build a Cafe Management Sim that's something of a cross between a Cookie Clicker and Neko Atsume, where instead of cats* you are "collecting" customers, who are attracted by your menu items and other features of your cafe. I want it to be very community-focused - instead of the game deciding on available upgrades based on currency, customers will suggest new menu items or offer to stock you with specialty roasted coffee or cookies or whatever. There are milestone events/upgrades based on number of customers visited in day (upgrades increase your min/max visitors in a day and it chooses a random number of visited customers between those numbers daily).
All that's what I've built so far. I want customers to have dialogue events that would allow me to tell a story on top of the mechanics, and it's at this point I have realised a fatal flaw in my plan:
Now I need to create characters and actually write a story. /o\
(Also a long term goal is a graphical interface but that's far future!)
* Depending on decisions made with the graphical interface the customers may still be cats.