Random Game Development – january status

Hey, I’ve been away for a bit, but I hope I’m coming back and will be more regular. As for the creative process, I’m still searching for ideas and prototyping a lot. Despite gaining some experience over the past few years, sometimes certain ideas in my head don’t fully translate into something playable. Below, I’d like to talk about a few small prototypes I’ve been working on recently.

It all started with the desire to capture the atmosphere of a dungeon crawler. I wanted to maintain the grid-based movement, but this time I incorporated monster battles. After some testing, I decided to abandon the grid and opt for more action and movement in all directions. Even after implementing enemy movement and a simple game loop, it still didn’t feel right. I was missing something engaging. I decided to go back to grid-based movement but with a twist! I changed the perspective to first-person. Once I had the basic mechanics, I came up with a completely different idea… which I’ll try to write about in the next post.

So, I’m struggling with jumping from one idea to another, but I don’t think any of them were bad. I’d gladly pursue all the ideas, but there’s one opponent: my limited processing power.
As part of this prototyping, I came to one conclusion: I much prefer designing gameplay where I rely on specific principles, such as grid-based movement, and the game rules are governed by clear and predictable algorithms. Debugging errors related to physics and, for example, an enemy passing through a wall frustrates me to no end.

In summary, my adventure with gamedev has not stopped at all; in fact, I came up with the idea that I could release each of my games on Friday the 13th. The next one falls in September 🙂
On a completely unrelated note, while programming, I listen to a lot of ambient music, which I would gladly share. Avith Ortega, a producer from Mexico, perfectly resonates with my Silent Hill-loving heart:

Stay safe!