Hello Everyone!
I’m Anas, the main programmer for 1998 : The Toll Keeper Story. I want to share a bit the journey of development on the tech side.
We define some principles, rules and fundamentals that must be followed, on development of the game for the clearer the tech implementation workflow. The main principles for every implementation tech in 1998 are “Easy to Change”, “Everyone can be set it up” and “Mix & Match”.
The reason for that principle is the time constraint and rapid implementation in the early stages of development. Also because this project mainly only has 1 main programmer and 2 other programmers until the middle of development. With those principles, it helps a lot to reduce workload on the programmers side and accelerate the development process. Even if the tradeoff is a bit hard when checking bugs and the project contains so many setting assets.
The “Easy to Change” principle means implementation should be easy to adapt with the design that can be changed. If possible when changes happened, the programmer didn’t change the code, just change the setup on the engine.
But sometimes when changes are too big, we as programmers need to change the code in the minimal way to handle those changes.
With these principles, we can easily change the implementation of the cashier window in the game with the minimal effort and time.
The “Everyone can be set it up” principle means implementation can be edited and set up by other developer roles. This principle allows other developer roles to directly edit and set up the content on the game as long as the system of the implementation has been built.
Sometimes we need to create editor tools to help other roles when adding content on the project. Adding dialog, Setting up driver on day, Creating conditional game events (e.g football player newspaper, hospital mom) and Setting environment progression (including rain effect) are the examples how these principles help us on the development.
The last principle, “Mix & Match”, means the implementation should be easy to mix and match or combine with other implementations. These principles force us to think about creating implementation that can be reused on the other implementation if needed. The core point of this principle is the system should be easy when adding / removing in the other implementations.
Moving cash between panels is the best example of this principle.
Beside the principles, we created some interesting features. UV Flash Light & Hologram effects is the most interesting feature. We need to create a custom shader to handle that. It was so challenging but the result is so satisfying. If you are interested in the process of creating that, you can see it on our social media.
Implementation of the cat on the toll booth is the most loveable process. Because whenever I need to test that feature, I pet the cat and the sound of the cat makes me feel good. The implementation is easy, but the process is so lovely.
The implementation of game 1998 : The Toll Keeper Story is a collaborative team effort. Without that collaborative team effort, I don’t think we can finish the implementation with all principles and struggles.
Thank you for reading the journey~