OK. Quick recap: this is now a dev blog (assuming I do it right), and I'm now working on a private project. Why? Well, here:
This whole thing started because I can't let go of a feeling that bothers me. I've never made anything that was 100% my own, from scratch. At least nothing I could call remotely presentable. This is what it's all about right now. I'm working in games, I've been part of small projects and large ones and I love all of it. But this one thing has bugged me for years, and recently reached the point I just can't shove it down anymore - the feeling that I NEED to make something on my own, no matter how small or how crappy. And I NEED to share it. I need to share the process and the result. again, no matter how crappy. And that thing needs to be a game. A small, shitty game.
That's the gist of it. And I've started doing it. My first real step was coming up with a certain guideline - I must never push myself too hard. From previous experiences, I know that if I push myself too hard (and too hard is relative, in my case it can simply mean I'm spending too much time thinking about it), I would back down. I always feel that whenever I try to undertake an endeavor I fear is too much for me, I end up avoiding it because I keep treating it as such. I decided that the only way this would get done is if I take baby steps. Micro-baby steps is the way. That is, to do whatever I can whenever I can, and never begrudge myself or not doing something, or not feeling like it. Never try to create a deadline, and if I do, never feel bad for not having reached it. Because then I hammer it into myself that I just can't do it and then I don't do it. The idea is that at some point, even if it takes years, I'll have SOMETHING to show. It's a stupid approach, I know. It's counter to everything I've read about being productive. But honestly I think so far it's working. I do try to be sort of consistent, but I can never stress over it, that's my one rule. Of course I keep breaking that rule because I constantly stress over it, but in that case I never let it influence what I do. I can stress all I want as long as I never let that stress dictate what I do. So far, this has worked for me.
That guideline was probably the most important and crucial part. The next step was trivial by comparison: figuring out what to do. I decided to study Unity because people use it and it seems cool. I didn't look too much into it. I know there are other options, but the imperative was to not obsess over what doesn't need to be obsessed over. I wasted enough of my life thinking what was "best" to study, so that I never actually studied enough of anything. Now it's time to do, to create. So Unity is it. After that, it was time to take courses.
I enrolled in a few Udemy courses and did a few projects focusing on coding. It's been interesting and informative, and it's gotten me on my way. As long as I was doing courses, I was heading in the right direction. Because most classes weren't much longer than 20 minutes anyway, it all fit perfectly with my baby-step plan. I could keep inching towards a feeling of achievement.
But after a few course projects, I felt I needed to take another big step. I wanted to take what I learned and now make something of my own. A prototype. Just to practice. I won't call this a mistake but this has proved the hardest hurdle so far. Now I don't have a helpful helping of courses I can just give my attention to, I have to actually do my own planing and divide my time accordingly. This has been a problem, but I'm persevering. It's taking longer but I'm doing it and I'm doing my best not to stress.
So what am I actually working on?
A frickin' text adventure prototype. It's not even a full-length game, whatever that would mean. Like, the easiest thing in the universe, right? Well, for me it's not. But I'll be happy when I get it over with. I took one of the Unity essentials courses to get me started. Not sure if it was the best way to start a text adventure but it's the only one I found for Unity and even though it went about doing things in a slightly different way than I expected it's been working for me. In the last couple of months I've been taking what the course gave me and adding and chancing things. A few weeks ago I finally finished tweaking the architecture and now I'm finally ready to work my own design into it. Now I just need to finish a proper game design document for it. Then ill start building it. I don't know how long that'll take, but I know I'll get there.
But, actually, the last bit of struggle I've had since then has actually been just writing this post. I decided I didn't want to start writing the design until I made a post about my work so far. And I hate doing this, you see. It takes me ages to write something and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned I'm not good at it. But, as I said at the beginning, sharing the process is important to me. It's part of this whole project. Not just making something, but documenting it. So I'm forcing myself. And finally I'm done with this and can get back to designing the prototype.
The next time I feel compelled to put something in writing, I might delve deeper into what I want to do and why I'm working on a text adventure to begin with.
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