Brain Fog & Crossed Wires

Hiiii everyone!! Sorry for the lack of posts, things got a tiny bit busy since, well... holidays and all. In fact, it's been so much so that I haven't really had much of a chance to work on the Idle Meowser project file the past few days. I only really got to figuring out how to group a set of nodes into a comment box all together, so the blueprint map is a little cleaner now. But things will soon be continuing!!

I've already set up some goals for 2025, and this game is actually one of them. I'd like to make significant progress on Idle Meowser by the end of next year; let's say... The whole idle clicker half (since there will be two main game modes), I'd like to have that completely done by the end of next year. Anything more than that is bonus. If possible, I'd also like to start working on some of the concept art, but we'll see how that comes along.

I've got a lot of plans for just how to manage this too! From here on out, I'm gonna spend some time each day learning something in Unreal Engine, regardless of whether or not it pertains to this particular project. That way, I'll probably be better equipped for the more complicated parts later on!

Anywho! I hope you all had/have a lovely day, regardless of what you may (or may not) celebrate. >w<

Didn't get much done yesterday, but I got plenty done today!

For one, I figured out something on my own; how to format a text box to reflect the total number of Kibble Points. Before, I had a number just kinda floating there underneath the button, but now the number is reflected in a lil box at the top left corner underneath where the name will be placed.


...Don't mind how it looks, I'll make it look all fancy once the base programming is done. :'D

Anywho! After that success, I tried again at attempting to figure out how to program the "idle" part of this idle clicker. And failed. I might need to just bite the bullet and ask for help from a UE5 BP forum or something, because apparently both the "Tick" and "Timer" events don't work the way I thought they would. Buuuut... The upgrade I made can still be used. Instead of adding one point per click, I've set it to multiply the base number, so now buying the upgrade will make the 1 a 2, buying another will make the 2 per click into a 4, so on and so forth. So now we have this!


Also, for the box that doesn't seem to do anything, I'm still trying to figure out how to only have the button enabled if you have enough points but it's not cooperating with me. Rude little thing, but I'll keep chipping away at figuring out how to make it work. It won't elude me forever!!

Then I noticed something. I'm using a lot of separate "IM Game Instance Ref"s for the floating variables. I counted seven in total on this Upgrade UI alone, so I decided to cut down on them. First I tried linking all of them to the same and... uh... It was a mess. Lines everywhere, more than usual and not in a way that looked good. So Plan B came to be! I went with a middle ground of having every 2-3 variables linked to the same reference, so now it's a little cleaner while also bumping down the amount of references from seven to three. Not perfect, but much better! Now it looks like this, and I've done the same with the other parts too.


That's where I decided to stop for today. Doing this took about... Oh, 3.5 to 4 hours? Mostly because I was trying to look up how to add the timer addition, make the button work the way I want it to, etc. Still, the basis is almost done! Once I get the "idling" part all set, I can begin the real work on it, such as the assets. Right now I just have a test image for the button, but that'll likely be the first to be changed into an actual bag of kibble.

I think, once the actual clicker part of this game is done, I'll work out the other half of the gameplay loop. That's the actual caretaking part where you look after the cat that King Ramses entrusts to the player, which will be... an interesting time to code, at the very least. :'D But that's all for this log entry for now~!

Sooooo, let's go over the plan.

I'm going to be developing this game in Unreal Engine 5 in Blueprint mode, since it seemed like the most beginner friendly to me out of all the options I looked into. While I would love to learn C++, it's one of the few things I just can't really teach myself. It's like my brain checks out as soon as I look at it. All of the visual assets will be drawn by me in Clip Studio Paint unless stated otherwise, and any music I'm going to try and make myself using MuseScore. The latter will probably be a little tricky, since I haven't looked into writing music since high school, but once I start learning it again it shouldn't be tooooo bad... probably-

Oh, but I guess I should explain what the plan is for this game. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, it's going to be called Idle Meowser; it's going to be a idle clicker game with a few other important mechanics. If I had to give an example... Think of something similar to Cookie Clicker; you click a button to get points, which we'll be calling kibble, to buy upgrades so you can make even more kibble. Now, think of a pet simulator like Neopets, Subeta, or Flight Rising; you have to care for a pet's hunger, health, and happiness. And lastly, add something like the Princess Maker series, where you're going to be judged on how well you've cared for your pet within a specific time frame and neglect could result in the pet running away and getting hurt.

Those three things will be the setup of Idle Meowser. You'll be charged with caring for a cat that the King of Cats, Ramses, has entrusted into your care as a test. You will have to generate Kibble Points (KP) to buy food, water, medicine, and toys as well as cosmetics for your cat. If you do well when he shows up for evaluation, you win and get to keep playing in a never-ending loop. If you've treated your cat poorly, King Ramses will take your cat away and place a curse on you, resulting in a game over and a corrupted save file. Your cat will be highly customizable by breed, coat pattern, size, facial features, colors, and randomized personality traits that will affect your game; no two cats will be the same, just like in real life. Accessories like collars will be able to be bought, but only certain specific ones will have any actual effect on the gameplay. You may also get an avatar for yourself, if you so choose, which will be equally as customizable in a paper doll-like fashion.

So far, I understand how to make the button you actually click to get Kibble Points and how to make a very basic shop, but the "idle" part is proving to be a little tricky. I'm going to do some research to sort out how to add KP/s before I work on anything else, since that's prettyyyy important for a game like this.

Look forward to the next update!