community game project?

exodrifter · May 3, 2025, 4:44am

I’ve been considering doing some kind of event or community project that everyone can contribute to as a way to stimulate conversation, grow connections in the community, and promote knowledge sharing.

First, I want to say that I’ve already discussed this idea with @Titanseeker and @FerretDev. They both made some great suggestions and I appreciated their input a lot on this idea. Keeping these discussions in mind, I think I’m interested in proposing a collaborative game project that everyone can contribute to.

The idea is to create a party game similar to the WarioWare videogame series. This would let each person or team to add their own microgame to the game without needing an especially high level of coordination with others or a lot of time to spend on development. If anyone wanted to, you could also add additional play modes to the core game which leverage the existing microgames in a different way. The game would be made in Godot, licensed under an open source license, and released for free. We could use the gitplace to host the repository.

The idea would take place over two stages:

The core API that the microgames hook into would need to be developed, with an example microgame to demonstrate how microgames should use the API. Guidelines, rules, and requirements on what can go into the game need to be decided upon.
People develop their microgame whenever they want and open pull requests to add their microgame to the official build. The core API and more gameplay features could be added over time, as long as they are backwards compatible with the existing microgames.

I think the game should have the following features/qualities:

Space and anime themed. Maybe even have Tsuki-hime as a mascot for the game?
Simple controls (movement controls and one button)
Multiplayer support
Localization support
Microgames have small disk usage limits and small time limits

I don’t quite have time to kick this project off myself right now, but I figured now’s as good a time as any to get the conversation started. It would be great to have a version of this game ready by t/suki’s second anniversary. Is anyone else interested in working on the core API? Maybe you have ideas on how the game should be designed? I would love to know.

ColdEmber · May 3, 2025, 10:22am

Sounds like a fun idea.
Do you envision Online Multiplayer or just Local?

ZeikJT · May 3, 2025, 4:44pm

Yeah that sounds awesome! I am not sure I’m the best architect so I’d probably leave figuring out the core API to someone else, but once a plan was in place I would be willing to chip into helping get it written. If I think of any fun little mini-game ideas I would totally write those too!

exodrifter · May 3, 2025, 6:08pm

Since t/suki is a digital third place, I was thinking that online multiplayer would be suitable! It would be nice for people all over the world to be able to play together. Supporting local multiplayer as well would be nice too.

However, I’m not terribly familiar with how the multiplayer API works in Godot. So, I’ll need to find someone to help out with that or I’d have some practice and learning to do.

Choto · May 3, 2025, 8:37pm

I know jack shid about cores and APIs and such, but I do have a lot of micro game ideas floating in my brain from over the years. 8] I’d like to contribute how I can

bucky1729 · May 4, 2025, 11:41am

This sounds like a really fun idea! I haven’t programmed anything in months, so won’t be much help there, but would love to contribute to things like the design of the micro games and the art direction, as well as the general discussion throughout.

Haru · May 4, 2025, 3:09pm

Sounds like a very cool community driven project. My intuition (could be all wrong lol :P) says some kind of abstraction for networking or a set of easy to use custom nodes/scenes to make multiplayer microgames would be a good start. My knowledge for networking is quite shallow, but I’m open to discuss stuff and help any way I can.

PGComai · May 14, 2025, 4:51pm

This sounds awesome. I would love to work on the core, it sounds like a fun task.

ZeikJT · May 15, 2025, 5:46am

This video got recommended to me… is it a sign?

exodrifter · May 16, 2025, 10:48am

I attended one of the workshops and one of the talks at GodotCon Boston 2025 on networking and it seems like the state of Godot’s built-in networking API is probably good enough for now. It’s not terribly efficient or scalable, but it’s easy to use for small games and I wager it would be good enough for this game. So, I think we should use the built-in networking stuff.

I’ll reach out to @PGComai to see if we can talk about the core engine stuff. If anyone else is interested, let me know and I’ll try to loop you in on it too.

Also, we probably need a name for the game, or at least a working title so I can make a repository for it in the gitplace. Does anyone have suggestions? We don’t really need to name it like Warioware, so I am more inclined to go for something whimsical, cute, and fun like Moonheist or Moonwalk Hyper.

Oh, and that video @ZeikJT posted was really fun and cute, I gave them a follow. Guess it’s a sign c:

exodrifter · May 16, 2025, 6:34pm

@PGComai and I will be streaming the core engine discussion on May 19, 2025 at 8:00 PM on Twitch. We’ll use the stream together feature, so you can join us at either twitch.tv/pgcomai or twitch.tv/exodrifter_.

Update: The stream went well! We made some design documents and agreed on the working title of MOON TV for now. The design documents and git repository are up at tsuki/moon-tv. You can see the VOD here.

exodrifter · May 20, 2025, 10:24am

Couldn’t sleep so I ended up making a logo and wordmark to use for now:

MOON TV logo and wordmark

It’s got little bunny ears for antennas ^^

I also went ahead and snagged an itch account to upload the game to eventually.

maidmage · May 21, 2025, 5:00am

Exo and I were talking today about how to design the game’s UI. We’re thinking about building a mini 3D environment, so the entire start, settings, and lobby menu will all be diagetic. This is all subject to change, so let us know what you think!

Here’s a rough mockup of what the lobby screen could look like below. The general idea is that this would be some kind of menu visible on a chunky CRT display. Im thinking of pulling from vector graphics styles or terminal based designs, just kind of from 80s and 90s sci fi. The CRT would be a 3D model on a desk, with probably some random decorations on it. Maybe a little chibi statue of tsuki-hime to the side.

This lobby screen would have a visible code for other players to join. This could be toggled hidden for the sake of streaming. Below is a panel to customize your name, color, and a shape. Something to help distinguish each player. Further down are three buttons, the start button, exit, and a settings button.

To the right is a list of the players currently in the lobby, with a little indicator of how many players are currently connected, with the max being 9 players. The host can interact with the player names to kick them, and a confirm prompt will appear on screen.

The settings button would cause the camera to pan to the left, and it’ll reveal either another monitor to adjust the settings, or maybe a physical device with some knobs, switches, and sliders to adjust settings like volume, color blindness, controls, and localization (as listed currently on the gitplace).

These settings would also be visible on a main menu screen outside of the lobby, where they would also pan the screen to the left.

To the far right of the main image, you can see a glass window overlooking the surface of the moon. Maybe the earth or the sun is visible in the distance, and maybe some moon base buildings as-well. The most important thing visible out here would be a moon buggy of some kind. Once the mission starts, we’d see the vehicle drive off into the horizon, kicking up moon dust, and then we’d do a screen transition into the selected campaign/games. There might even be a loading icon with the buggy driving around, which could look a little similar to R.E.P.O.'s truck which crashes into buildings. I wouldn’t want to rip them off though, but something similar could be cute.

Once the host clicks play, the camera will zoom onto the surface of the moon and another interface will appear. Exo was thinking about the window also doubling as a screen, so it would just appear above it. Either way, this new menu would display all the different campaigns, almost like a map. It would kind of feel like each campaign was a different part of the moon you’d be driving too. You’d then select one of them and the game would start and the buggy would drive off screen.

An alternative option would be to have a drive or VHS player connected to the TV. Picking a campaign would pan the camera to a drawer on the desk or a nearby cabinet, and inside would be a bunch of floppy disks, or VHS tapes, or cd disks. Something more physical. Then after selecting that some animation would show that being inserted, and then playing would result in the buggy driving off sequence.

I like both ideas honestly, between the location interface or recordings on disks/tapes. So maybe you guys can give your thoughts on that, or anything else.