D20 Tavern Game, Some Progress

To Manage A Tavern

One of the first big challenges I’ve run into as a first-time game designer is figuring out how to actually hold a player’s attention—not just for a few minutes, but for an entire playthrough.

It turns out, just having a story, mechanics, or a setting isn’t enough by itself. They all need to be blended together, and that blend needs to have a little bit of sugar on top: incentives.

So I started sketching out a basic gameplay loop:

1. Introduce the story and initial goals.

2. Engage the player with mini-game challenges.

3. Reward the player with immediate incentives.

4. Let them spend those rewards on upgrades.

5. Pay off with story beats and introduce new goals.

6. Repeat (but with more depth each time).

Simple? Hopefully. Effective? That’s the goal.

Environmental interactions shouldn't just be simple button presses. Filling a beer shouldn't be automatic—it should require the player to stop the pour at the right time to avoid overflowing. Sliding a drink down the bar to a patron could give extra flair (and bonus rewards). Lighting the tavern hearth? Why not make it a chance for the player to pull off a flourish, like a little fire-spinning trick?

 

Worldbuilding Needs More Than Fantasy Wallpaper

It's not enough to slap the word “fantasy” on a tavern and call it a day. Dwarves, elves, and barbarians shouldn't just look the part—they should act the part.

Dwarves should:

• Challenge you to drinking contests.

• Pay you with gemstones when they like you.

• Maybe leave a mess every time they visit.

Elves should:

• Prefer natural surroundings.

• Sing hypnotically when content.

Barbarians should:

• Challenge patrons to strength contests.

• Laugh raucously and cause a scene.

Rogues should:

• Gamble.

• Pull tricks on other patrons (or even the bartender).

Both race and class should influence how patrons behave, what they like, and how they react to your tavern's decor and service.

The Dice Roll System

So how does this all tie into gameplay? I'm leaning into the good old D20 system.

Every patron will roll a d20 to determine how much they pay and how satisfied they are. The catch? Their roll will be influenced by the environment and your actions.

Example:

The dwarf dislikes the soft bar stools (-1), but appreciates the stone walls (+1), a strong drink (+1), a hearty stew (+1), and the roaring hearth (+1). That's a +2 bonus.

If he rolls a 9 on the die, it becomes an 11 after modifiers. Not amazing, but enough for acceptable service. He leaves the normal pay, no tip, and a nice little spill on the bar from slamming his mug.

 

Things I'm Still Considering:

• Should there be sections for each type of clientele?
  A sunlit room with living wood walls for elves and druids? A moody stone hearth area for dwarves and rogues?

• If you make a world-changing choice (like accidentally turning your regulars into undead by enabling a necromancer), should that be permanent, or could you eventually reverse it?

• Should wealth progression phase out poorer patrons, or should they still show up even when nobles and kings start visiting? Maybe your choices decide—help the poor, or become the snob who bans peasants from the fancy tavern? I’m not judging.

For now, we've got a solid foundation, even if there are still some big choices left to make. I've been working on animations and art (trying very hard not to restart everything just to make bigger sprites, but I’m tempted). If ConcernedApe could make it work with small sprites, so can I.

Until next time,
Stay warm and toasty.

 

A Northern Thanksgiving

     I have to remind myself that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving like the Americans over here. I keep asking Canadians what their plans are for the holiday.

    Here in the Northeast Kingdom there are a lot of Canadians, and plenty of people who speak exclusively French. There have been times when I've been unable to speak to a person because English is not in their vernacular. When we were living in Texas, I'd run into the situation with individuals who only spoke Spanish - an interesting contrast between the two states, providing a sense of familiarity in an otherwise unfamiliar environment.

    Yet another hurdle: vegetarian food, better yet, northern food. I miss heavy spices and vivid flavors.  I'm used to the bold and rich flavors of southwestern Americana, to peppers and overwhelming spice, and to Cajun kick. Things taste muted here. Not many people are a fan of that kind of food here. There seems to be a lot more gravy and bread, and a lot more greens.

    Also I thought I knew what poutine was, thanks to a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga that my wife and I used to frequent, I did not. Real poutine is thick cut potato wedges, deep fried, some cheese curds, and some brown gravy drizzled over top (I prefer the non-traditional ones from Chatt)

    Anyways, I drew up a quick animation about the short life and death of a turkey for a non-vegetarian's Thanksgiving meal. This one was only 64 frames of animation, using a single color pallet for once. Nice and simple.

    Regardless, I have plenty to be thankful for: I have a place to live, food to eat, a fire to warm my bones. I have a family to love, to love me, and an abundance of hope for our future together, no matter how many miles may separate us all.

   I hope that you have plenty to be thankful for this year too, American or not. 

   Until next time, stay warm and toasty.

Coffee Scene Project, Update #4

    Over the past eight years, I've dedicated myself to the dream of launching my own coffee shop. In meticulous detail, I've crafted logos, devised equipment purchased, meticulously priced out every element, brainstormed innovative shop layouts, and conceptualized an array of specialty drinks featuring custom syrups. Drawing from a wealth of experience gained through employment at various coffee establishments and countless hours immersed in the coffee culture, I've cultivated a profound passion for both the craft and the unique atmospheres these spaces create. 

    Its fair to say its an obsession.

    Today I took a crack at cleaning up the rooftop area of the coffee shop scene. I started by adding a pretty simple pattern with some overhead lighting.

    You'll notice that the countertops look "thicker." This was to accommodate the animation of the barista in the last post. Finally, I felt I needed to add some more clutter to the empty spaces.

    This came in the form of shelves for merchandise, more coffee related decor, some plants, and another empty shelf that becomes more relevant with the addition of all the animations. Here is a relevant technical fact though, a GIF file only supports up to 256 individual colors. I'm well over that limit in this short animation. Attempting to export it as a GIF file led to a lot of strange image artifacting. Instead, I had to export 78 individual frames and convert them into a video file (MP4) through a website called Clideo, which, annoyingly, threw a watermark on the file and wanted to charge me $9 yearly. I'll have to research a better way of going about making videos out of these image exports. But for now, here's the video of all the animations added to the scene:

    

    Annoyingly, the video compression seems to have hit it pretty hard, and the frame time changed from 100 milliseconds to a whole 0.1 second each. This is why the animation seems to stutter. Oh well, it's a problem to solve later on, when I actually want to start recording high quality videos of all of these animations.

    Until then, stay warm and toasty.

Our Doggo

     This is Ruby:

As a baby, the week we got her.

    Here she is redrawn in pixel art, as a little practice:

D20 Tavern Game Concept

     Let us set the scene: A gathering of intrepid adventurers, seated in a lively tavern, meticulously strategizing their upcoming escapades. Among them are a mage, a cleric, a rogue, a barbarian, and a knight—united in eager anticipation of the epic quests that lay ahead.

    In this narrative, you assume the pivotal role of the tavern keeper, entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining and overseeing what will one day be the most renowned tavern in the lands.

    This was the starting idea for a game concept my best friend and I started working on: a D&D tavern management game, centered around the same twenty sided dice used in most chance rolls in the role playing game. I started creating art work in my preferred medium, pixel art:

    The idea would be based around catering to customers, serving them drinks, food, and entertainment. Certain elements of the tavern would influence the dice rolls, such as the decor, the other customers, the upkeep of the shop itself, the weather and warmth inside, etc. The higher the patron's roll, the more money the patron would pay, and the higher the tavern's reputation would raise. The higher the reputation, the better customers.

    It was our intention to add world events and stories that would evolve based on some dialogue options when talking to key patron characters, which would then in turn affect which patrons visit. Encourage a mage to become a necromancer to bring his dead family back? The tavern's patrons may all become skeletons and zombies and ghosts! Side with a certain faction during a kingdom's war? The other side may boycott your tavern! Or maybe the king listens to your advice about some tax laws and now all of your patrons are broke!

    Where we were struggling was within the main game-play loop. How does the character interact in the tavern daily? Does it need to deliver each plate and drink individually? Does he sing for the customers? How do we encourage engaging interactivity? Do we make each delivery and service a small mini game to increase the D20 roll odds?

    This is where we ground down to a pause in our development. But the idea is far from dead, we'll be back to it again soon.

    We developed a basic male model that we intended to be customizable (hair, skin and eye color, clothing color):

   

 

     We had several assets done as well, including a lot of meals and drinks, coin payments, and a VERY basic map layout.

     And then, finally, we had a recurring joke character of mine that I dubbed "Jerry" that would be the player character's guide. He was an animated skull of mysterious origins that would be revealed throughout the story. Unfortunately, this particular element may not stay, as it feels too close to Graveyard Keeper's assistant character. This is still to be determined though.

    We're developing the project in Godot, and the artwork in Aseprite. Both are excellent programs.

    We'll come back to this project, and maybe it'll go far! We're definitely passionate about the idea.

    Until later, stay warm and toasty.

Coffee Scene Project, Update #3

     Working afternoon shifts definitely gives me adequate time to focus on this set in the mornings before I have to head to work! So before I started my animation, I followed up on my commitment to clean up the space a bit:

 

    I think this is an improvement over yesterday. There's less contrast in the background and not a ton of distractions off to the left (though I still need to delete the chair and table, and maybe throw a potted plant in that corner). Additionally, the foreground is now obvious, and the counters aren't as messy and distracting - just a nice simple pattern to imply texture. I added some detail to the top of the room that I'll end up changing down the road as well.

    Next, I added another character to the scene. The all important barista:

    It's just my character without a beard and a few color and detail changes. Why work too hard? I started by having him pull a shot of espresso:

     Once I was decently happy with that, I convinced him to make lattes in perpetuity:

    I was happy with the end result on this particular animation. That's it for my work on this today!

    But, there's more to come.

    Stay warm and toasty!

Coffee Scene Project, Update #2

     Sunday was productive! I got some of the assets scaled down and converted over to a style I feel matches my character:

    To do here: Clean up the "counters" and make the green backsplash/tile a little bit softer. The menu sheet thing stands out a little too much as well. I'd like to make the espresso machine, coffee machine, and the register the obvious foreground.

    I believe I was getting ahead of myself here, I should have focused on a more concentrated scene but I had a larger cluttered coffee shop envisioned in my head.

    Kate suggested I make the windows rainy to make it feel more cozy. I think I got distracted with the other side of the room at this point and went off the rails.

    This is where I stopped. I think when I come back to this I'll cut out the scene left of my character and focus on cleaning up what I have. I'll add some animations to the machines and the barista I've created behind the counter here. But hey! Progress is progress, and the practice and reflection is invaluable.

     More to come.

     Stay warm and toasty!

Coffee Scene Project, Update #1

     Over the last year or two I've been playing with the idea of building a coffee shop, piece by piece. Here are some of the assets I've made previously:

Coffee Brewer

Espresso Grinder

Espresso Machine

     Of course, none of these match my vision, stylistically. I'm working on scaling them down and swapping up the feel of them to match a little animation of my character that I whipped up today:

     A sip, a yawn: the perfect encompassment of a cozy Sunday morning cup of coffee. 

 

    More to come!

    Stay warm and toasty.

Winter is Setting In

    It's officially too cold to venture out here in Vermont. This move has marked a significant shift for us—from the bustling metropolitan area of Chattanooga, TN to one of the least populated states, Vermont. Moreover, we've settled in one of the most sparsely populated areas within Vermont itself. We now find ourselves immersed in the world of farm and feed stores, where Carhartt is the prevailing fashion choice, businesses close shop by five, and internet access is scarce. There's a peculiar dichotomy of residing in one of the most liberal states of the Northeast Kingdom, while being surrounded by conservative ideals in the rural countryside.

    The city we now call home has long surpassed its peak in population and economic prosperity. The passage of years has been unkind, witnessing an exodus of both businesses and young residents to larger cities. Those that endure struggle to secure enough work or workers to remain afloat. Restarting my career here has proven challenging, and the thought of relocating to larger cities to sustain ourselves looms on the horizon.

    Yet, amid the hardships, Vermont's beauty persists.

    We're surrounded by sweeping landscapes, serene lakes, soaring mountains, roaring streams, waterfalls, and more natural beauty than any state I've had the pleasure of visiting. Unfortunately, winter has already set in here. 

So, now that I'm inside, warm and toasty from the wood stove, I've turned my attention back to my blog. Tonight I took a stab at animating a simple frog in Aseprite. Here's how that turned out:

 

 I started out trying to design him with a quirky larger eye. You'll see that I cleaned that up pretty quickly as I started to add some animation frames in: 

 

 And the final product:

    I hope you're all doing well. 

    Stay warm and toasty.

Formative Years

    The first game I ever completed was Pokemon Crystal on my brother's Game Boy Color. 

    Some kind soul had gifted it to him for his 9th birthday. It was the purple one. I'm sure the jealous tantrum I was throwing as he unwrapped it wasn't too bad. He had always been gifted the new fancy toys. Not that he didn't deserve them, he was a miracle after all.

    I reflect on (brood about) my childhood pretty often. My oldest brother was the first born grandchild of a huge family, so of course he was spoiled. And then my second brother was the miracle child, surviving a disease that should have killed him, so of course he was spoiled too.

Totodile, Pokemon Crystal 2001

    Then there was me. I think the excitement of kids had likely worn off after the 40th cousin had been born, so needless to say, I didn't get showered with gifts the way my brothers had. I'm sure I expressed my frustration plenty. I'd never complain about it though, really!

    Of course, the upside to my brothers being spoiled rotten was their hand-me-downs. It didn't take long for me to inherit the GameBoy. My mother had bought him Pokemon Crystal at some point, and I happily wrote over his save data with a new game. Totodile was my first starter Pokemon. He helped me beat the game at the humble level of 74, along with the first legendary Pokemon I ever caught, Raiku. I took me 5 or 6 attempts to beat Lance at the end of the game. I may have asked my oldest brother for help once or twice. He did so, begrudgingly.

The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past

    The games that I played as a kid were formative to who I am today. The art and stories that draw my eye have their roots in the charm and style of the games of the late 90s and early 2000s. 

    I remember being blown away by the lush nature and open world of A Link to the Past. I recall being entrenched in the stories of Golden Sun and Super Mario Tennis Pro Tour. I remember being charmed by the bright and colorful world of Kirby. I remember learning to manage time and resources with my first Harvest Moon game. Final Fantasy Tactics and Advanced Wars expanded my planning skills, and changed my expectations of the medium forever.

    It did much more than form my preferences though. My brothers and I played everything together. If it was multiplayer, we did our best to wear the contacts out on the game cartridges. We spent hundreds of hours playing Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. In fact, even the single player games, like Pokemon Colosseum, were open to back seat experiences.

     If it wasn't video games, we'd be out on the trampoline together, playing basketball in the backyard, or shooting soda cans with BB guns. They had my back at school and at home.

    Things would change. My oldest brother was nearing adulthood, and the effects of my middle brother's childhood sickness were beginning to manifest in learning difficulties for him.

    When I turned 9 my oldest brother moved to my father's house. When I turned 10, my middle brother was sent to a special education school to learn how to live without hearing. My single mother was now the only company in our home, and she often worked late. I had to learn to be alone.

     It was a melancholy experience. While I was grateful to be alone during my brooding preteen years, I missed the companionship of my brothers. After school, I was just... alone. No brothers to watch my back, no one to jab and sneer, no one to laugh and play with.

     I played Pokemon Emerald that year.

    The opening sequence of the game shows your character biking away from their hometown, the parents, and their best friend. The sun is shining down, the coastline behind them. They're on their way to experience their first journey, all alone.

    But the part that matters to me is the end.

    Your character travels an exotic world, thwarting evil, meeting new friends, facing puzzles and challenges, saves the world, and meets creatures of myth and legend. Your final challenge is the elite four, and the Pokemon champion. Your character faces them all, wins. and becomes the new reigning champion, all by their self. There at the end, having conquered what the world had to throw at you, your best friend arrives to meet you. 

    The final scene of the game shows your character biking back the other way, their journey complete, the world saved. Now, the night has set, the city is behind you, and you are no longer alone.

     The journey ends with you and a companion, headed home. 

 

    I can't say that I ever got used to being alone, or that I learned to be comfortable in that silence. The truth is that, sometimes, childhood ends sooner than we were expecting it to. I'm sure that my brothers felt that way too.

    Sometimes circumstances will leave us stranded. Maybe we're ostracized, left out, ignored, or forgotten... And sometimes we have to go through life that way, fighting our battles alone. If we can stick it out, face those challenges head on, just maybe, at the end, you'll have a companion waiting for you too.  

    I've got a special place in my heart for pixel art styled games. One of my first projects as a Computer Science major was a top down adventure game. It was terrible, of course. The character art was a lame stick figure made in MS Paint, and you couldn't do much more than walk around.

    Years later, I'd like to think that I improved a bit. It wasn't too long ago that I discovered Aseprite, a software specially designed for pixel art creation. Now I'm happily making the same art that kept me company as a kid.

    So, hello from me to you. I hope I can keep you company too.

Gerthew