November OneGameAMonth Goal

November 9, 2014

It is pretty late into the month already.  I failed to make a single game since I’ve joined @OneGameAMonth in September, I should have two by this point in time!  So November is going to be different.  Initially I was going to jump into NaNoWriMo and do some creative writing, but game development is important to me, and I need to work out those muscles.

With that, I’ve announced that I will complete a game during November.  I had a short discussion on twitter about this, that initially I’ve had issues with “just creating a game”.  I basically set the bar of standards too high for myself.  It was set at an achievable level, however I’d become overwhelmed and give up before putting any effort in, so I have now lowered the bar.

In November, my game is going to be a top-down racing game.  I have set the following as a minimum feature set to consider the project a success.

  • Minimum of a single track and single car for the player.
  • “Hot lapping” for the best lap time, with saved best lap time.
  • Lap Validation, no wheels off, and completed a full lap.

This is certainly a short list, but is a fair amount of stuff to get done, considering the time I’ve set a side and effort in the past months.  I hope to build this so that for future @OneGameAMonth’s I can perhaps create additional game modes, and/or add significant features.  If not obvious, racing is amazing.


Two months later, zero games!

November 1, 2014

Ouch.  That hurt.  I’ve joined @OneGameAMonth two months ago and I have zero games.  Actually, upon making the announcement I failed to put any more time or energy into it.  I’m rebooting though, and hoping to make something count for November.  I’d really like to get TurtleBrains working a bit better before LudumDare 31, coming this December 5th-8th!

I’ve yet to decide what to make, pong? snake? asteroids?  Or should I slap the old Scrapyard Racing project back into drive and do a “simple” top down racer.  I am addicted to speed, and that would likely hold my interest longer, so it is tempting, but it is also overwhelming because I don’t want to just create a game…

Part of my issue is making the commitment, and even those small games take time to polish.  I don’t want to just throw out some game and call it “my finished game this month”, I want to finish games that pop.  I am after-all a professional game developer, how hard can it be to make a game in a month?

Very.

But in November I will work on TurtleBrains as little as possible, mostly just enough to get better sprite handling and possibly sounds, but my focus will be on a game.  Yet to be decided.  I should have something started this weekend.