This project is the most complex and ambitious thing I have ever set out to do in my life... To see it actually slowly coming to fruition is very satisfying and rewarding.
Three weeks have passed since I first created my game project on 9 June. Reviewing my progress so far, I have:
- 35 unique working levels
- A cool level selection room with pathfinding
- An achievement room without achievements (yea, what is this supposed to mean?)
- A level editor, without save/load functions yet! (I did not plan on making this at first though)
- A really nice looking main menu
And gameplay wise, I have:
- A player, a player 2 that can grow, jump, walk and animate accordingly
- I have made Enemies in the game that kills players (this sentence sounds funny)
- And I have made Friends that make players grow (this sentence also sounds funny)
Only the enemies have graphics that I'm happy with....the rest still need to have their graphics and animations upgraded.
As for gameplay elements, so far I have already done the Doors, Spikes, Keys, Blocks and they all function well, except that there is a problem with the Block collision I cannot solve :(
So on the whole, the game to me is already not as simple as how it started and has a bit of depth with elements such as the doors and keys. I'm quite satisfied with what I've done, but I am also somewhat bothered by level design... The main problem now would be that I need to redesign a few of my levels to make them better before I can continue working on level 40 and higher.
I don't really have a gauge on my progress, but the game is probably somewhat 20% complete I guess seeing how much I still have left. While I could make a complete game in four or five months at this rate, the harsh reality is that I am going to have another school project to work on... Sigh.
For milestone's sake, I guess I should take some screenshots of my current game. Maybe when I do get it completed hopefully, I'll look back and see how the game used to be. But first, what I have done today:
- Created Clouds for Main Menu
- Created awesome transition from Menu to Play
- Rearranged some levels
- Re-added the game logo to the main menu screen (but needs to change)
And now, the screenshots of what the game is like currently at the different states as well as what I have managed to accomplish so far :
I feel a certain emptiness knowing that I will not be able to see my game every day. I might be too exhausted after school to even open my project folder. It's a huge risk putting my project on hold for a long time like that. My motivation is rather high now...and I know it will only drop with time.
At the end of these 3 months of school, I may not even have any motivation left. That's what happens to me when I stop working on stuff for awhile - all my abandoned pictures and work were due to me not touching them for a period of time, and then I decided not to return to complete them any more. If I were to look through my Pictures folder, for every drawing I have completed, I'd see one drawing that I spent little to significant amount of time on, only to give up halfway through.
There's worse. I might be too busy to even remember the project thereafter... I might even forget about ever dreaming about completing it and leave the project to rot. I don't know what will happen and it scares me to think about all the possibilities.
I know for the first or second week I can probably still have time to come home and do something everyday, but I know thereafter I will be bringing home lots of "homework" to do. I will barely have time...and it feels like time is slowly passing by now. I've not told many people about this project, and well nobody asks anyway. Though it seems like a free-to-work-on project, I have a personal goal and deadline for my own game - to complete it before I graduate. It makes it worse to know that I have only one only final holiday after this, after which in October, I probably will be flying overseas for several months. When I come back, I will be dangerously close to graduating.
This project may be for fun, and indeed after three weeks, I discover it has been more than fun. I've learnt so much more than what I initially knew! Apart from fun...a percentage of why I want to make this game is for a reason I can't really explain... This game...it's just important that I complete it.
(After reading my own thoughts, I realise it may sound like I'm addicted to my own game, but no.)
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