I have always been interested in Game development, ever since I was a kid. The first video games I played made a huge impact on my life. Minesweeper, solitaire, 007, Turok, etc. But it's deeper than that I think. My favorite game as a kid was bingo. I loved bingo so much that for Christmas one year all I wanted was the all-wood/metal bingo set from Costco. I was a Lame kid. But I think I enjoyed the concepts of chance and skill. A kid could win bingo against an adult. Anyone could win bingo. I studied game art and design for years in college, and while it was fun to delve into the industry with some amazing people, The school was a for-profit college that had poached me right out of high school and ultimately I left there with no accredited degree, and a mountain of debt. It left a bad taste in my mouth and so I put my love of game development to the back of my mind and focused on other things. I still love game design, I love modeling in 2d and 3d, I loved coding and I loved making things. So here I am 10+ years later, rediscovering game dev with some new and some old tools at my disposal. Just trying to make something that I enjoy.
What I am using currently for my projects
(Adobe Photoshop, GDevelop, good old-fashioned learning by trial and error)
Programs I have and may use again (Unity, Unreal, Blender, Maya)
My First Project (30 Day timeline)
I started with a list of game styles I enjoy to pick my first project. I landed on a stacking/physics game stylized as a burger joint. The ultimate goal is to create a simple game where ingredients (good and bad) fall from the top of the screen. The player controls a plate to catch and stack ingredients, making the tallest, best burger they can and gathering or losing points. Easy enough, right?!
I started with a clean slate in a brand new program, GDevelop. I dove head first, I downloaded the program, snooped around for a day in the tabs and features, and looked through their tutorials and learning material. and then started to test out some If/Then style coding. Not Bad! First impressions are great, this is a really fun and easy way to get started. But is it the right program for me? I tested a couple of other engines. I thought about using unity, or diving back into unreal, I even looked at some other new tools like Godot. But I ultimately enjoyed the UI of GDev better and it seemed to be the easiest to manipulate. I don't need a heavy, demanding program for this project. So I'll keep it as light as I can and just work on getting something out there for now.
Days 1 and 2
Learning, mostly watching and rewatching other developers, dissecting code, learning that there's no one right way to do anything but there are definitely some wrong ways to do everything. and also some art development. What style am I going to use? I thought about a nice smooth, quiet style for this game, something relaxing... But then, I realized that I had never stepped into the world of pixel art. I had always felt like pixel art was somehow cheap, not worth my time, a relic, something to keep separate from newer styles. I always stayed away from it. But now, I have an excuse to visit this style for this game. I could use some old-world charm to make this game feel like the game that inspired me in the first place. So I tested it out. I found a resolution I liked and spent a whole day dedicated to just listening to tutorials and painting pixels until they looked like burger ingredients. WOW. I love them. They're so different than anything I have done before, and while their rough edges make me feel like a kid in MS Paint, their sophisticated colors and design make me feel like an adult who just stepped out of their comfort zone. Good Job Me!
I started to use AI generation about two months ago and decided to input my thoughts on this game to see what it spits out. Maybe to come up with a vibe, or style. While AI tech is impressive, I prefer to use it for preliminary studies and color studies. I like the way certain AI generators like Mid journey "think" about color. I spent a little time just getting some strange results that may or may not prove useful in the end.
I do like this idea of the restaurant BEING a hamburger. Like an awning and window slapped right on the side there.
Day 3: I brought together my assets, dropped them in the game file, and set up a background. I successfully created spawn points but haven't been able to randomize the object generation yet. I successfully grouped my "good ingredients" so maybe soon I will work out that code. I have tested and applied two different methods of movement and collision. Meaning that I have tried and used the Physics engine as well as the standard force/stop methods in GDevelop. I have created the player object with movement and collisions, but haven't been able to limit its movement to left and right only. I'm looking for the best way to make that happen. now. I haven't figured out stacking quite yet, but boy oh boy we are getting somewhere fast. Maybe I will be able to finish by the end of my 30-day timeframe. Things I still need to do I need to create the UI, what will it look and act like? I need to create cover and icon artwork for the game, I need to set up the points system and potentially a leaderboard or personal score record within the game. I need to fix some of the kinks in the physics interactions and optimize everything I can. There are still some ingredients that need artwork as well. I will also need to spend a day recording and editing audio, thankfully my life partner has a really nice mic I will steal....for science! And I have plans to compose an original song/melody for the background and menu. I've done this before, so It should be a fun little addition to this project.