Welcome to Shabby Camper Games!

Hellooooo everyone!  I just want to welcome everyone to this new adventure.  Some time ago I started paying attention to game developers and listening to what they had to say about game design.  I got fascinated by the whole process and wanted to gain a better appreciation and understanding of what it took to bring a game to life.  The best way to learn is to do, so I came up with an idea and started writing.  I don't know how to code, so I decided to start with a visual novel since it was more about the story than complicated game mechanics.  

Among many interests in my life, I sometimes indulge in motorsports, so I naturally tapped into that experience to create the world of my new visual novel.  In the real world of racing, you spend 90% of your time on the business side, and only about 10% actually going around a track.  I decided to base the game on the process of negotiating a new sponsorship.  Exciting, huh!?  Yeah, probably not.  Oh well, I'm doing it anyway, but to spice it up just a tad, I decided to make it a dating sim.  Instead of wooing a romantic interest, the player would have to sell themselves to a corporate rep, but the reps would all be based around typical dating sim archetypes.  I thought it would be silly, and as long as I could come up with a playable game that kept the player entertained for about an hour, I'd have accomplished my goal of creating and publishing a game.  

I started on a simple outline and came up with a few ideas for characters.  It was a pretty slow start, but then I spent some time chatting with a writer who had some major film, television, and video game titles to his credit.  I started to learn how to actually write a GOOD story.  I began researching what it took to make a quality game.  After a while, what was supposed to just be a silly little educational exercise started to feel like it could actually be a fun game.  I mean, I'm being realistic considering this is my first attempt at a game, but as I wrote, I started to realize that my characters actually had their own stories to tell that were more than just goofy puns and double entendres.  

I'm still working on flushing out each character and organizing the story, so many things are still "TBD", and anything could change, but I'm really excited to see what I can do and even more excited to see what I can learn.  I hope there will be other games to follow after this one, but I've already learned so much and gained such a great respect for those who create games at all levels.  It's really hard to do!!!

Over the course of this project, I'll post more about the actual game and my ad hoc development process.  As I learn, I want to pass on those lessons to anyone else who also wants to learn, and maybe one of you will be inspired to make your first game, too!  Thanks for being here, and thanks for joining me on this journey.  I really hope I can put out something that you'll all enjoy!