Hello! It’s been 4 months since I started working on Dreadwoods Gatekeeper full time, and here’s the progress.
In this video, I show all that’s been made and talk about plans for the game as we play through the simple demo together.
I’d love to hear your opinion. I am still working on some parts of the design, so your feedback can influence the game now while it’s still this early in development.
Note that the Steam trailer looks better than the demo at the moment because we created a separate project specifically for the trailer and for exploring the art style we liked. But then I started a new clean project for the actual game. We’ll make it look even better than the trailer eventually, but for now, the focus is on gameplay.
Development Progress
I made very basic features that cover many of the currently planned gameplay. The game will lean heavily into the story, but I want to make sure first that the gameplay is fun on its own.
List of things that are done:
- Task system
- Dialogue System and Cameras – Locked and free dialogue types (free lets you move, usually for less important things). Responses with keyboard keys or mouse.
- Basic inventory – Items can be picked up and added to inventory. Some items can be picked up, and some can just be carried (like items from the Trader Wagon that can only be carried).
- Trader Wagons and Inspection – They come to the gatehouse; you then need to check if their documents are legit. Then compare their trade permit with the goods they have in the wagon and charge tax for goods that are not on the list. To charge for goods, you need to physically take them out of their wagon and put them in your handcart to show what items you want to charge tax for. Once inspection is done, open the gate for them to let them in or deny them access.
- Patrol – (Very basic version) Task to walk around town, patch up walls (just click to fix at the moment, but it will be a mini-game later). As you walk, you will hear bush-rattling sounds. Sometimes this can result in a false alarm, but sometimes it will be an animal. Now it can be a deer that you can ignore or a wolf that you’ll have to deal with.
- Bow combat – (Super basic placeholder) If a wolf shows up on patrol, it will run towards you, and you’ll need to take out the bow and shoot it. When shot, it just disappears (later it’ll behave depending on the power of your bow). You have 5 arrows (later there will be upgrades), so you have to be very careful with them to last through the whole patrol.
- Item System – Items can be carried and placed in specific places.
- Witch Hour – In Dreadwoods, people believe in Witch Hour. They signal it with church bells, and everybody barricades their homes with a special type of blood-painted wood. So you’re ordered to do it as well. You need to pick up planks and place them on windows and doors to barricade yourself until an hour passes.
- Wood Cutting – While waiting at the gate for people or wagons to show up, you will have different tasks to choose from on your own time. One of them is cutting wood. You’ll need to cut it in a woodcutting shack, then bring it to the gatehouse with a basket, where you’ll use it to maintain the fire. Staying inside near a warm fire will give you very useful bonuses—better stamina, stronger bow damage. Most of that isn’t implemented yet—just wood cutting, which lets you put wood on a stump, take an axe, and cut it in half.
- Day-Night Cycle – I’ve implemented a very basic day-night time system. The idea is that your shift will start during the daytime. Most trading wagons will come then. As night comes, tensions will rise, and more suspicious people might appear. Eventually, you’ll have to do a patrol during nighttime and barricade your gatehouse if the bells for Witch Hour ring.
Most of these features will need more work. Some of them are more complete (like task, dialogue, camera), and some of them are almost placeholders (patrol, combat).
Design, Ideas, and Feedback
I have a general idea of what the game is, but I’m still considering many design directions.
At first, I wanted the game to be very linear and story-focused. Basically, it would all be about the story with very little filler gameplay. But then I decided that this game could work pretty well as a simulation, and the gameplay can be fun on its own.
So now I’ve shifted more towards that. But I’m still deciding how it will all work.
Games like Papers, Please have interesting inspection gameplay, but I never enjoyed the time limit. I always feel like I’m too slow and not doing well (maybe that’s what the game wants you to feel, but still xD)
So at first, I didn’t want to put any real-time passing. Especially since the game is story-heavy, I want players to take it easy and enjoy all the dialogues and story without stress.
On the other hand, a simulation about a medieval gatekeeper does seem like it could use time passing of some sort—to make it feel like you’re really there doing a job and not just playing through a scripted sequence of events.
One solution is for time to pass, but when wagon inspection or any interaction/dialogue starts, the time pauses. Then, when it’s done, it moves forward in fixed amounts depending on what happened.
Then I can randomize some events, like who comes to the gate, etc., and add fixed events that must happen to move the main story forward—making it both a simulation and a story-driven experience.
Anyhow, now that I have this demo, I’ll start experimenting with these things. And I’d love to hear what you all think about this and any other aspects of the game.
You can join me on the Discord Community where we can talk about. This is also where I'll share the first demo.
Art Style
As I said above, I started a new project, so now the game doesn’t look as good as the trailer. But the trailer project was not optimized at all and was only used to help us figure out what style we want.
Though we’re still working on the style, the artist I worked with on my previous games is joining me on this project too. But he’s a 2D artist, so for those 4 months, he’s mostly just been learning Blender (3D creation tool) and doing lots of courses.
We are figuring out some technical issues, and then we’ll be trying out different styles. In general, we’re going for this low-resolution retro style that you see in the trailer, but we still need to figure out exactly how we want our characters to look, and we’re trying to improve the overall style.
Hop on our Discord, where we’ll soon start sharing different variations of styles and you guys can help us decide what looks the best.
What is Next?
My next goal is to make a very basic demo that I can share. Before I start tightening up all the features for the final version, I’d love to hear what you guys think about the game while I can still change and shape it.
If you already have an opinion on the current state of the game, I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you!
As I said, I’ve been working full-time on it for 4 months, but I’ve been tinkering with it on and off for 2 years before that. Mostly just figuring out the design, lots of writing and rewriting, figuring out the art style, making the trailer project, Steam page, etc.
But things are moving faster now. I am aiming to have a very early demo ready in a few months.
Thank you for taking interest in my game, and talk to you soon!
