I'm building BAD FUEL, a first-person horror game about driving home at night and having to stop for gas. This theme was perfect for me and the game inspired by my years working at a gas station...

The worst part of any stop is the pump. You pay, you take the nozzle, and then you just stand there while it fills. Maybe run in for some junk food or to use a questionable bathroom. But at Perpetual Fuel stations, the pump is loud, and loud is what brings them.

See if you can stay alive, get home and maybe even figure out what's happening with the gas stations in this part of the county.

I plan to keep a devlog here as I build, and hope others will share some feedback and suggestions!

Your just a simple person, trying to drive your old truck home on Route 16 on a suspiciously dark afternoon. You know you'll need to stop for gas, so sure hope the stations are open and stocked!

First step for me is always a simple click-through so testing is controlled (and serves as a start screen when done) and a panel full of debug telemetry. Since I'm shipping in WebGL it also lets me monitor performance drops in editor and initial builds. Controls at the bottom are currently just a check list of what I need to build, may change.

Speaking of -- not making the mistake I made in the last jam and building today so I can kick any setting bugs.

Starting with basic functional block out, and as time permits adding refined visuals. But in horror, so much is driven by lighting and ambience rather than asset models so I want to see how far this will take me. Starting with a simple truck, interior cab and wired up fuel gauge and basic interactions.

I'll be using a treadmill approach, so the truck itself stays still and blocks of road cycle under you. That allows me to easily make the road infinitely long. My current thinking is to procedurally place things along the road based on various condition triggers.

I'll need multiple gas stations, so I'm thinking of ways to not need to make a bunch of unique layouts but still keep each stop interesting. Keeping pacing balanced in a smallish layout without feeling repetitive is always a challenge (at least for me).

Last sessions on BAD FUEL have been primarily for gas station and road segment layout. Even though the lighting means a lot of stuff is discrete or partially hidden, I think building a horror game really is like building a killer haunted house: if you cheap out on the subtle details, you lose something real even if the players can't fully articulate it.

So even though it's taking a while, I'm taking my time on these. I'm using a tool (Farclip) that helps with this, things like book keeping of layouts and analyzing how it flows. It's not really an AI in the sense of generative AI, as you primarily ask it questions or perform analysis but then you have to implement any changes -- but disclosing here just to keep it honest (since their website technically ends in *.ai lol). Whatever it is, this is the 3rd or 4th game I've made using it and it's awesome for stuff like this.

But regardless, TONS of work still to do!

Been a busy 10 days! But we're just about there.

SFX, Music, end-game cinematics are all in. I'm still playtesting and making various tuning tweaks -- but otherwise BAD FUEL is just about done!

Even though I'll be polishing through the end of the Jam, I'm honestly at the point where my own bias and familiarity with the game are blockers. So if you want, please take a gander at it and give me some feedback!

https://pixeldr.itch.io/bad-fuel