Green With Energy - Development Archive

This page contains an exhaustive archive of the development process of Green With Energy, my first commercial video game.

My hope is that the gamedev community can learn from this work. When getting started years ago, I found that while there was a lot of polished tutorials, art pieces, final work, etc... there was very little outlining the actual development process in such a raw and open manner.

Buy it now on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/890890/GreenWithEnergy/

Please note that the source code is not yet available due to commercial licensing restrictions for the assets, however I am trying to find a solution. In the meantime, I'm open to sharing the GitHub repo on a 1:1 basis if you're part of the gamedev community, so please give me a shout at hello@cameronbrown.co.uk if you're interested.

December 2020 - First Design Doc

This was created exactly one year before this document was written (2021-12-30) so there's a certain finality that it gets published on year later. The game was called "Electron Grid" at this time and the doc here was just my first outline of the idea itself.

Source: /static/gamedev/greenwithenergy/ElectronGrid.html

Spring 2021 - Prototype Videos

The videos in this YouTube playlist are some of the early concepts, however you can see that the general art style and layout of the game was very quickly put together.

Getting here was actually the easy part, as the following months would be laser focused on playtesting the mechanics, tweaking the user interface and getting the game to actually be fun.

May 2021

Puzzle Elements Design Exploration

A slidedeck I created to fully hash out the concepts.

Design Document

An expansion on the initial design doc, this follows the test of the MVP on reddit and other forums. Lots of interesting data about how the game performed in terms of analytics here.

Initial Advertising on Reddit + Steam Data

From the above doc:

Official Press Kit & Website Launch

GreenEnergyGame.com was launched along with an official press kit page, which can be found on Google Drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1O5_ecQQfdW6hSb-v4okqn8zOARhoxIHN

This material is entirely for press and YouTubers, so it's mostly a re-hash of what you've already seen.

Summer 2021 - Playtests, Lots of Playtests

Summer 2021 - Logo & Steam Capsule Projects

TODO

Translations

The Unity localization package was used to create a strings table driven from Google Sheets. In future, I hope to expand upon the game with translation updates and expand to more markets.

Appendix A: Various PDFs & Links (Non-Design)

Appendix B: Explorations & Notes (Design)

Appendix C: Trello Board

Used to catalogue the full development process, including screenshots of every version and experiment.

Appendix D: Full DevLog Notes

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: ERRORs: 0; WARNINGs: 0; ALERTS: 20.

Links to alert messages:

alert1 alert2 alert3 alert4 alert5 alert6 alert7 alert8 alert9 alert10 alert11 alert12 alert13 alert14 alert15 alert16 alert17 alert18 alert19 alert20

>>>>> PLEASE check and correct alert issues and delete this message and the inline alerts.


27/12/2021

01/08/2021

Going to start implementing levels into the new level format. Expect half to be done soon. Collect data on how the puzzle creator feels.

29/07/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image1.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

28/7/2021

n/a

27/08/2021

n/a

27/07/2021

26/07/2021 (GWE Final List)

  1. Translation file sent off and done
  2. Fix performance issues
  3. Fix level spawn issues
  4. Fix report quality issues
  5. Fix teaching moments
    1. X-formers
    2. Battery overload
  6. Fix or remove star ratings
  7. Implement private land
    1. Policy
    2. Implementation in PowerConnectionMode
    3. Dock tile
    4. Farmland tile
  8. Finish electric vehicles policy
  9. Finish sketch for final 12 levels
  10. Implement 30+ sketched levels in-game
  11. Fix surface level spawning on ‘legacy’ levels
  12. Fix land-tax changing
  13. Steam Next Fest
  14. Implement proper Steam Workshop publishing
  15. Puzzle Creator
    1. Surfaces (Grass, Sand, etc…)
    2. Variant UI
  16. Contact press & influencers
  17. Run-through all levels on budget, weather, challenges, etc… on spreadsheet
  18. Policy
    1. Power Wall
    2. Solar Rooftop
  19. Challenges
    1. Redundancy
  20. Final launch day! 🎉

25/07/2021

24/07/2021

23/07/2021

22/07/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image2.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

21/07/2021

20/07/2021

19/07/2021

18/07/2021

17/07/2021

30/06/2021

18/06/2021

17/06/2021

16/06/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image3.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image4.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image5.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image6.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image7.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image8.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image9.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

06/06/2021

20/05/2021

28/05/2021

21/05/2021

20/05/2021

15/05/2021

14/05/2021

11/05/2021

10/05/2021

06/05/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image10.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

05/05/2021

03/05/2021

28/04/2021

27/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image11.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

26/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image12.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

25/04/2021

24/04/2021

23/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image13.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

22/04/2021

21/04/2021

20/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image14.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

19/04/2021

18/04/2021

17/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image15.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

16/04/2021

15/04/2021

Old New

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image16.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image17.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

14/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image18.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

13/04/2021

10/04/2021

05/04/2021

03/04/2021

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image19.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text

30/03/2021

17/03/2021

  1. Hit 300 wishlists on Steam and almost 100 members in my Discord community
  2. Kicking off a series of design experiments to understand which game mechanics to focus on next
  3. Writing a document and spreadsheet to outline the scope of the game (I'd say I'm 1/3 into this project, but I want to formally define that scope so I don't go overboard)

13/03/2021 (and earlier…)

12/03/2021

  1. Scope out land tax feature
  2. Built out the level gallery (with Steam Leaderboards) and port first level
  3. Scope out tutorial/educational part of the game

>>>>> gd2md-html alert: inline image link here (to images/image20.png). Store image on your image server and adjust path/filename/extension if necessary.
(Back to top)(Next alert)
>>>>>

alt_text \ \ 06/02/2021

07/02/2021

09/02/2021

11/02/2021


Written 2021-12-30 by Cameron Brown SITEMAP