Making the Dream Work

Part 2 - Progress and Motivation

Link to First Post - https://itch.io/blog/987779/making-the-dream-work-part-1

Since the Last Post

Since my first and last post on "Making the Dream Work", things seemed to drag a bit.  Work was busy and, as has been the way over the last 18 months or so, GameDev took a back seat and stalled for a time.

It was always on my mind, but I didn't feel like I had the head space to really focus.  As frustrating as this was, I started to think about how I could change things up and try to add a little consistency to my GameDev activities.  I thought about how, whenever things pile up that it gets put aside, and how I might refocus my efforts to try and fit it in.

Then something happened that helped me realise something incredibly important for consistently moving forwards.  I was having lunch out with members of my family, and as the afternoon progressed I wanted to depart to try and use some of my day for GameDev.  On trying to explain this to a family member, who was enjoying the afternoon and thought I was making excuses, their response to my wanting to do some GameDev was, "... So nothing then."

Now, to clarify, my family knows I have been trying to make headway with GameDev, and that I have trying to chase the dream as it were.  However, my family is not really technically, or creatively inclined, so my efforts seem like a passing fancy that will ultimately result in nothing.   It's not that my family is against the idea, but more that they don't care to understand it.  As it doesn't fall within their experience, they can't quantify the progress, the aims, or the outcomes, and it just seems like a waste of effort and time.

On hearing this response, I was a little surprised because I have been trying to progress and learn over the last 18 months.  I don't feel like it has been a wasted effort, and I have a clear goal in mind; To be able to make the sort of games I want to play, to a quality that I would expect, and to offer those games for others to play (and hopefully pay for as well).

Later, thinking back on this moment, I also realised that my efforts in GameDev have been sporadic, somewhat disconnected, and with sometimes large time gaps between activities.

This brought me back to the thoughts of how I can try to add consistency to what I'm doing and keep progressing forwards.

My conclusion was that I need to treat GameDev like I would a job.

I still feel like I'm a hobby developer, but if I can start to treat GameDev like a job, I should be able to allocate regular time for making progress.  It doesn't matter if that progress is administrative, organisational, research or other activities that are not directly making games, so long as the activities help to progress my capability to make and publish games.

By allocating a specific time, and number of hours in the week, I should be able to regularly contribute to my own progress and get ever closer to the dream I want to make a reality.

Treating GameDev Like Work

After making this realisation, I needed a plan and an approach that would allow me to regularly focus on GameDev while fitting in with my actual job and daily life.

This was actually easier than I thought it would be.  I work in retail, mostly afternoons and evenings, for 5 days a week.  However, due to the nature of retail work, the days are not strictly full work days.

With this pattern, I decided to try to and set myself up to do GameDev on the days I normally work, before I go to work.  As I don't normally start until mid to late afternoon, this can allow for up to 3 hours a day where I can focus on GameDev, 5 days a week.  The remaining 2 days are then proper days off.

Since implementing this routine, I have been making steady progress, and better still, it feels like I'm making progress.  While much of the work so far has been around getting the routine set up, and figuring out a way of tracking my progress, it is still progress.

The Progress

Over the last few weeks, I started to refocus my efforts.  As part of this, I decided I would need a tool that could help me keep my projects and activities organised.  Normally, I use spreadsheets to do this, but constantly staring at, creating and losing track off multiple spreadsheets can become tiresome.

To accommodate this, I decided to create my own tool to track the projects and tasks I want to complete for the projects.  I know there are a great many solutions out there that can do this, and probably do it better than my solution.  But most of the solutions out there come with a lot of bloat that can distract from the core purpose of the tool.

My requirements were simple:

• Be able to Create and Manage a Project
• Be able to Create and Manage Tasks for a specific Project
• Have a clear user interface that can show incomplete and completed Tasks

The Tool - https://crazyhoundgamedesign.itch.io/crazy-project-tracker

Building the tool took approximately 16 hours over 4 days, and the end result is a tool that meets these requirements and works.  There are a few minor alterations and additional features I would like to add, but the core features are there and it is usable.

This tool is now my main repository for tracking my progress and remembering what I was working on for each project.

Following the creation of the tool, I also started to look into getting the Android SDK installed and set up to work with Godot.  Initially, installing the SDK, Studio and the Virtual Devices didn't really seem to like my laptop.

After a bit more research, I realised that my laptop didn't have the power to run the Studio with Virtual Devices, so I reinstalled it without those features, integrated it with Godot and have now managed to successfully install test builds of a few apps to my phone.

For myself, this is a huge milestone.  With my aim of being able to offer apps through the Google Play Store, being able to create test builds of my apps and games, and install them to my phone is an amazing feeling.

This progress has brought me closer to making the Dream a reality, and closer to getting to the point of uploading games and apps to the Google Play Store.

For the currently planned apps and games to be uploaded, there is still a bit of work to be done getting them to work with touchscreen controls, ads and the like, but now that I can test them on Android, it is really beginning to feel like I can do this.

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