Making a Godot game: Update 2

Hey internet! Guess who forgot to write an update for the how-the-heck-do-you-make-a-game project I’m working on? Yes, it was me, you win.

It’s been a few months, and in my spare time away from work and general life stuff I’ve been (slowly) getting used to navigating Godot’s editor and Node system, getting familiar (kind of) with C# (I chose to write this game in C# just because it seemed like a useful thing to learn), getting my head around a different coding paradigm; and trying to figure out exactly what it is I’m trying to build.

On the latter point, I do have a habit of feeling-things-out when I’m designing and writing code, as opposed to meticulously planning things out beforehand. There’s definitely pros and cons to this. On the pro side, you’re not overly locked in, which allows you the freedom to iterate and adapt to new ideas; but on the con side, it can lead to messier code that you’ll have to refactor (though, refactoring code is often satisfying) and if you’re not careful, your project can become an unfocused mess of scope creep.

Anyway, I’ve been building out a very basic playable game skeleton. There’s a main menu, there’s buttons you can press, there’s a mechanic to load scenes, there’s a lot of interactive UI, there’s a whole bunch of decoupled signal-based events, there’s a target system, a points system, a winnable state, a training mode...

This all sounds like I’ve been way more productive than I actually have been, as it’s all very rough and needs a lot of work, but it’s something. The biggest notable positive is that I haven’t abandoned the project yet. Choosing the simplest game idea I could think of was the right move. Small, well-realised completed projects are almost always better than large, ambitious, half-finished projects. I’ll try to remember that.

I don’t really have much in the way of deadlines, and I’m trying not to stress/burn myself out with it; so the plan is to keep things manageable. Small, incremental updates little and often, rather than heroic leaps forward in energetic chunks.

This method seems to work better for me, as I avoid becoming overwhelmed and I’m making continuous progress without thinking too much about it. Like going on a long hike and just enjoying the views (the process?) rather than worrying too much about making good time or how many steps I’ve done? (the progress?).

Honestly, I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I’ll just keep going and adapt where I need to.

Until next time!