With rising problems with single point of failure platforms and net neutrality not only recently i see that we need to start hosting on our own again and stop relying on third party services. Most people nowadays just use someone elses service, maybe out of convenience or out of not knowing how to do it themselves. The problem with this is that you and your data become the product, and sometimes even the ransom, of someone else.
In this little article i want to go over the possibilities of hosting your own stuff yourself without relying too much on third parties owning a single point of failure.
In this post i want to talk about the hardware for our little game, what would be the bare minimum, what is broadly available from different vendors for the foreseeable future and what is affordable. I will be trying to stay below 35€ per unit for a small batch production, including PCB, display, MCU, case and the miscellaneous small parts. There will also be the option to ghetto together your own from parts you might even have in the drawers, much like the Arduboy. When designing this i will take notes from the design philosophy of the legendary Gunpei Yokoi. Withered technology, stuff that is proven and does the job.
This is the design document for Pocket Pet Rogue, my little game project for a, at the time of writing, yet to be made handheld. We will use this to plan out and execute the rest on my learning journey on how to make a game and a game system.
See Part 0 for my general battle plan or check after the break for what i have on my mind for the game.
I asked what you want, got answers from you and now ye shall receive. You wanted some gamedev and i have this idea of a virtual pet RPG mix-up on mind for long enough to write it down and bring it do fruition. No clue yet if and how i market the final project, if this leads to something playable and fun i might start a Kickstarter, if not at least we all learnt something. I hope. ^^'
Either way all design documents and code will end up on Github. If you want to make a version of the game yourself you should be able to. And in the end i would be a very happy kitty if people started modding the living hell out of Pocket Pet Rogue.