Experimenting some more, expect sporadic updates

My current game experiment is this:

It's challenging, as you can probably tell, and I'm enjoying it. The project is inspired by an old Sega game called Gain Ground. 

 

Gain Ground is a top-down 2D ancestor of the twin-stick shooter. The player progresses from the bottom of the screen to either an exit at the top or towards a boss somewhere in the level, all the while shooting at enemies and rescuing characters for use in later levels. There are a number of features I enjoy, such as the rescuing of new characters and how the entire level is always shown to the player. 

 

However, there are a number of rough edges I'm hoping to remove in my new game. For example, there are a number of almost useless characters and abilities that only ever get used when you have no choice, and game progression is a mess.

I like how much my project has progressed, but I can't keep it up.

 

At my job, as I've mentioned before, there's more pressure to conform to goals that benefit the company rather than myself. This takes up more of the free time I get for studying C++ during the week. On the school side, I've found myself in a situation where I need to read 3 textbook chapters and get ready for a new test I wasn't expecting before next week. 

I've decided to stop working on my own games completely until I either get more free time or the current school semester ends. I already feel like I'm starting to burn out on C++, and creative side projects aren't helping. That said, I may still post random blog entries in the coming months.

I've started working through Love2D tutorials. 

 

I've always wanted to understand and use the Love2D game engine. The biggest barrier for past-me in regards to this goal was simply my limited understanding of coding concepts. The Lua language, which forms the backbone of Love2D, retains many complexities for a newcomer despite the extreme simplicity of the language. After 9 months of learning C++ and Rust, however, Lua is starting to feel like child's play.

I'm going to continue tinkering with Lua and Love2D in whatever downtime I have, and I'll make another post if I find or make anything interesting enough to share.

Week 5: done, but not fun

This week, I learned the hardest thing for me to do is set aside a project that inspires me. When my daily life is stressful, as this past week has been, this becomes doubly true. However, in the interest of this little "3 hour game each week" project I'm on, I tried my best to move on from Ghost and Hostage to something new.

I spent far more than 3 hours this week experimenting with mechanics in Godot. My self justification was that I needed to settle my mind into a new goal I might achieve in 3 hours. I ended up stuck on ideas and mechanics that would only apply to the growing list of projects I've shelved at one time or another, and that continue to haunt me.

I finally settled on a new project yesterday, and started building it at my earliest opportunity. The idea was a simple puzzle game. I don't typically play or enjoy puzzle games, but it was all I'd come up with all week. The result was so mechanically uninteresting to me I will not be publishing it.

To break it down: you play a little green dude who picks up green bugs. You automatically pick up the bugs, and automatically drop them in the appropriate spots to cross over lava to reach a goal. You control your character using the mouse.

 

I imagined a really simple and breezy puzzle experience, and ended up with something that was too simple with less than an hour left for changes. I tried some changes and ran out of time. 

 

I can still see some potential in the idea. More hazards, height and or jumping, more obstacles, and there might be something. Trouble is, I don't think I care enough to return to the project.

 

I've re-written the ending to this post multiple times. How much do you vent about growing pressure at work to conform in a public blog? About wanting to find a new job, but feeling hopeless in regards to your ability to step into a new industry or find anything better in your current one? I have no answers, these 3 hour games aren't helping, and I'd rather use 1 or more of these hours looking up jobs each week. So, as of now, the 3 hour games are done.

I'm going to step back and figure out what development I can fit in without adding too much stress. I'll post an update next week on what that means.