Poor Doug - Devlog 1

Developing Poor Doug: Our first adventure/exploration game

This post is meant to be a peek behind the scenes of our game 'Poor Doug' that we are currently working on. It is a scary-cute, survival/exploration game about a dog and his friend; a tennis ball. 

We thought a seagull might be a nice NPC to add later

Our first gamejam

The fun started with a gamejam called Screamroulette, which took place in February 2025. The genre was horror and we were supposed to incorporate a keyword that would be announced right at te start of the week-long jam. Due to our day jobs we couldn't really implement any of the mechanics we set out to implement, but we did create an animated trailer and the first iteration of our very own game engine. The dog could walk, but that was about it.

Even so, it was nice to be featured in a Youtube video after the jam!

Some early sketches while we were figuring out the map

The first brainstorm meeting

We kind of cheated though. Before the gamejam started we organized 2 brainstorm meetings to discuss what kind of game we would like to make. It so happened that the keyword 'tethered' really fitted with what we were aiming for.

During the first meeting we discussed art style and an overall feel. We all agreed that the focus would be on style. Since Sjors really wanted to make an engine himself instead of using something like Unity or Godot, (which he never used) we tried to keep the scope as small as possible.

We chose Joris' iconic style for the look and feel of the game.

Several sketches were made to test how the game should feel

The second brainstorm

The second meeting was all about making a plan and defining how everyone would contribute to the game. Sjors would be the developer, - since he was the only developer on the team - Tinus would do the music, Joris would be in charge of artwork and Max would lead and manage the team. By now we had a clear premise for 'Poor Doug':

During the meeting we discussed how we could make something engaging without only relying on gameplay.  A storyboard was made to establish the premise of the game and - most of all - to establish the sadness of our protagonist.

Poor Doug: just left by his owner with no snacks, no water and just a useless tennis ball.

We also considered options for how the dog would interact with the ball.
Since everything was going to be made from scratch, just walking around would already be a huge accomplishment for us. Still: we had some ideas about the mechanics. 

Everything is Dutch, but the sketches might give you an idea:

Making the first build

Tinus had a soundtrack in his archives that actually really fitted the game well. He made some edits and provided sound effects for Doug. Max made a rough animatic with some pointers for sound and art.  Joris really went out of his way and build all of the assets for the map, animations in all directions for Doug AND fleshed out the animatic. Coincidentally, all the music you hear on the radio in the car are made by us (or our bands). We really loved having some hardcore metal paired with the melancholic, dreamy soundtrack. Because, why the hell not?

At the end of the jam we managed to publish a build. Sjors came through by not only making it possible to walk around the map, but also incorporate our animated intro. We could not be more proud! We figured it was so much fun to work on this game, why not develop it further. And so we did. 

Not done yet

After the jam we came together and discussed what we wanted to do. Implementing the first mechanics would be a priority, but by now we realized this was going to take longer and that was fine. Maca, the name of our engine was getting more and more capable and could even be run on Mac systems by now. The rest of the team could focus on the story and getting a teaser done to show off the idea.

We also made some animated tests, just to see how the tennis ball would move through the world and how the camera would follow that movement. It was all very rough and clunky, but that was fine.

To quickly test mechanics we made short animated clips in blender to look how the player would navigate through the map. (Would love to add a GIF here if I get it below 3mb). Even though the art would be 2D, this workflow allowed us to test quickly within an isometric world.

To be continued...

At this point we are developing the story while Sjors continues to work on the engine. We plan to make several sandbox builds to test out the main mechanics. 

So far we are loving the process and we are eager to keep getting together and hype each other up for whatever comes next!
The main goal for this game is to finish it while having fun.

To get more of a taste of the game we recommend watching our first teaser here!