History of the Field
In terms of general videogames, they were first created in the 1950’s by scientists in labs. One example of this would be OXO, a tic-tac-toe game created on a computer by A.S. Douglas in 1952 as part of his doctoral dissertation. As for the first videogame that could be played and installed on multiple computers, that’d be Steve Russell’s 1962 creation, Spacewar!, a space combat videogame. Specifying the genre to roleplaying videogames (or rpgs), as that’s my focus for my project, the first rpg videogame created was Dragonstomper on the Atari 2600 in 1982. From there, companies like Koei Tecmo Games, Atlus, Sega, and Nintendo took the helm in the rpg market (as well as videogame market in general) as they released more and more games till they got the big reputation they have now.

Current State of the Field
Some recent rpg videogames that I was inspired by and use as reference are Stardew Valley and Child of Light. These games are developed by Eric Barone and Ubisoft Montreal. Although there are other games and companies/developers that are in ways more popular and well known for rpg videogames, I’m sticking with these 2 as they relate to my project the most (unless I’m having a mind blank and forgetting some, which I probably am). For Child of Light, I mainly chose that because I very much liked their traditional, painterly style and am creating a game with a traditional/messy look as well. As for Stardew Valley, I chose that because the farm theme matches that of my game. In terms of minigames, I plan for them to be similar in context to that of Stardew Valley (mundane farming activities such as feeding barn animals, running errands at the general store, etc.). Stardew Valley is also not a very exciting game and is meant to be relaxing to play through. That is the type of feel I’d like for my game as well for the most part.

General Plan for Fall Semester
Oct 4 – Nov 1: Min -> Get demo written; Ideal -> Get the entire story written.
Nov 2 – Nov 24: Min -> Get 1/2 of art assets done; Ideal -> Get all art assets done.
Nov 25 – Dec 6: Code up and finish demo (first 10-15 minutes of gameplay).
(Animations and the rest of the coding process will be saved for/worked on during Spring semester.)