Cook On's Blog

Luca Almeida • April 2, 2025

Sketch to Screen

The first step to making a game isn't to dive right in and start programming, it's to plan and sketch.

Now, I'm getting ahead of myself. Why am I here in the first place, making a videogame?
Well, it's been one of my dreams for years!

For a start, I play a lot of videogames. It's probably how I spend the majority of my time outside of school. I play more popular games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and Terraria; but I'm also a huge fan of the indie genre of games. I adore large indie games like Celeste and Don't Starve Together, but I also enjoy very niche games you probably haven't heard of, like It Steals and Outward.

Now what's my plan for my own? Well, I'm making a game where you run a restaurant in a fantasy world, but that's not the focus of the game. It's a game about the adventures you go on to get the ingredients for that restaurant.

So now, what's my timeline for this? My goal by the end of this week is to have the first working prototype for the game, mostly focusing on establishing a combat and level system to test.

My longterm goal for the game is for it to have at least three levels by the end of development. This is what the schedule will look like for those levels:

1. Week one's goal is to lay the framework for the code and get the first prototype running.
2. Week two is to design the forest level and get it in shape to test.
3. Week three is to test, tweak, and refine the forest level.
4. Week four is about the same is week 3, with finalizing the forest.
5. Week five is about testing boating. I anticipate lots of bugs with this mechanic, but I wanted to put it in the second level, the bay.
6. Week six is for
7. Week seven is all about the crags. The crags are craggy caves with another new mechanic, darkness. This won't be as hard as the bay but will still be a challenge to implement.
8. Week eight is all about testing the crags and finalizing the game. Then I'll hopefully be ready to ship.
9. My end goal is a fully realized game.

So how am I going to do this? I can't just grab a hard drive and a laser and go nuts. I have four main tools at my disposal right now.

1. GameMaker

GameMaker was a simple, free tool that I found for making games. It runs out of GML(GameMaker Language), which is similar to C, another programming language I recently learned.

2. Pixel Studio

Pixel Studio is my choice of sprite editor because it has a simple, clean UI and is free to download and use.

3. Paper

Much of my conceptualizing is not done on my computer. I use paper mostly because it's very free-form.

4. My Brain

To add on to the idea of not conceptualizing on my computer, I spend much of my time just thinking about my game. This is the same process that many writers follow, where they immerse themselves in their story's world to write it as they go about their day.

So, speaking of ideas, where are they so far? That rests in a lot of concept art and planning documents. To start, I'll share some concept art I've already made.

One of my ideas was intentionally to make my game pixelated to better get across hitboxes. I/E, when an enemy or the player is hit by an attack or not.



The "Stability System" is an idea I had to make my game fairer. It basically means that the player and enemies do not receive knockback while their stability bar is above 50%. At the thresholds of 50, 33, and 16 percent, they are knocked back. At 0 percent, they are knocked down, which for something like the gelatin in the picture, means it cannot move for a few seconds.



I even already have ideas for enemies and lore! In the forest level, you'll be able to see cultists from the old wind-cult in the area. They'll use spells to try and knock you down with gusts of wind, but of course, like any other creature, have to obey the stability system.

I am already riveted to get started on spriting this game. To be frank, my planning goes beyond what's showcased here. I have multiple text documents of plans for levels, enemies, systems, and the game's experience. At the very least, I am excited for what's to come. I'll be checking in next week with my progress on the prototype of the game.