On Tuesday I thought it was Thursday. That tells you how deep in the game dev cave I’ve been.

What came out of it: a grey goose who gets his rainbow back feather by feather, while you learn the Dutch colours. Rood, geel, blauw and the rest. I cut four hours of stream down to fourteen minutes so you dont have to sit through my eye breaks.

https://www.youtube.com/@savethedutch

I asked an AI to put black bark marks on a white birch trunk. It got itwrong, and the wrong version was better than the correct one would have been.This is a developer log for Save the Dutch, a game where you save your best buddy, the duck Dutch, by learning the Dutch language. In this one I go through how I think about design: why my trees have no individual leaves, why a birch lives entirely in its skin, and why the most important skill a designer has is not making things but recognising a good thing when it lands in front of you by accident.There is no teleprompter here. It is me talking through the work, mistakes included, and there were plenty of mistakes.It was recorded to work as audio too, so it plays fine as a podcast if you would rather listen than watch.LINKSThe written version of this, with all the images:

Support the work:https://patreon.com/konstantin.nikkariThe game:

https://savethedutch.com

For Finnish speakers learning Dutch:

https://opihollantia.fi

The studio behind the game:

https://raccoonbox.com

My personal site:

https://konstantin.fi

Instagram and TikTok: konstantin.nikkariDevlog 1, the announcement: https://raccoonbox.com/save-the-dutch-a-game-where-you-save-the-duck-by-learning-the-language/index.htmlThe red tree in this video is not mine. It is a good asset that simply did not fit my world, and it is from https://quaternius.comCHAPTERS00:00 Welcome, and how to listen to this01:13 Teasers02:40 No teleprompter, and why that matters04:31 Use AI as a tool, not as a replacement for thinking05:54 The tree that started all of this06:52 What Save the Dutch is08:06 Why the art style is simple and low poly09:20 A bad example, from my own game10:20 What Van Gogh does with leaves11:41 Vision, plan, and the flexibility to adapt13:38 The daffodils and the cornflowers15:49 What actually makes a birch a birch17:47 Why a white duck looks wrong19:08 The accident, the AI gets the bark wrong20:37 Four vertices, and why the mistake was better22:10 Getting closer to Van Gogh's rhythm24:54 What I actually think about AI26:16 The horse, the car, and the people who complained28:11 Everything the AI got wrong that day29:19 Meet Riki Raccoon31:36 Meet Dutch, and the ten seasons33:38 Why Dutch, and who this game is for35:42 Links and where to find me38:02 Thank youSave the Dutch is in development. Season 1 first. No dates, no promises, just the work, as it happens.#gamedev #indiedev #devlog #blender #godot #lowpoly #languagelearning #dutch