"Finishing" A Game That You Hated Making

When this year's GDTV Game Jam was announced, I was really looking forward to it.

Last year, I had to make and finish a game in around 4 days, with extreme pain in both my wrists, while exams were going on. So, finally having the full 10 days, with less wrist pain, and no exams going on in this year's Game Jam should have been a Godsend. Well, should have been.

The first day I brainstormed some pretty interesting ideas. And picked one of them, and started developing.

First Mistake: Seeing What AI Could Do

I was curious to see if AI is over-hyped or did it actually reach the point where it can do what people claim it did.

I was shocked. I saw a lot of "Before programming: 9 hours coding, 7 hours debugging. After programming: 1 hour coding, 24 hours debugging.", but no. The model I used, Phind, was perfect. It created code very quickly, modifying it as much as I want, and fine-tuning it to perfection. No bugs, no problems, nothing.

This made me lose passion for the project and game dev in general.

-"Already?", I hear you say.

Yes, already. I left Phind, started a new project where I only created my own code, but something in the back of my mind kept telling me that it's too late. Too late to learn. Too late to try. AI could already do it better. I tried to continue, but this whole thing just made my progress in the first 3 days horrible. One of the things that I enjoyed, and one of the main things in game dev, programming, is already done better by AI. I just kept thinking about it, slowing myself in the process.

Second Mistake: Lack of Art/Music/SFX Skills

I had a lot, and I mean a lot planned for this game before I started out. A bigger story, more interesting mechanics, better use of the stress mechanic, more levels, with more interesting designs, etc.

But, one thing that had to be cut that I was really bothered with was the change that would have happened to the game's world as you progressed.

I wanted the human characters to look different as you went into "The Zone" and out. I wanted the world to look different as you got more stressed and more affected by those around you. I wanted the main menu to change as you progressed. I wanted the SFX to change based on stress level. I wanted the music to be dynamic.

But,

1. I didn't have the art skills to create ANY of these.

2. I didn't have the programming skills to implement them even if I did have the art skills.

3. I just lost passion after that whole AI thing.

So, I scrapped everything, and went with a lazy, generic squares look. It was quick to make, but really ugly. The main character is supposed to have a hoodie on, but even I don't know what is going on with the main character or what is he supposed to represent. And "The Zone" is just a really lazy, black and white (and occasionally) red squares.

Third Mistake: Lack of Passion = Lack of Progress

I have reached day 5, and my progress wasn't looking so good. So, I opened my old project from last year, Building Upon Them, to try and see what I did and how I did it. And oh boy. What a surprise it was.

Even though I made that game in 4 days with less time each day and wrist pain, it had SO much done compared to this game, that I immediately thought "What kind of black magic did I use to create this in 4 days with no prior, proper experience in anything related to game dev and with all the obstacles I had?".

8 levels, secrets, secret endings, interesting levels, good mechanics, good code writing, good, proper project management, general cleanliness, and the game actually felt...finished.

And I realized what the "black magic" actually was. It was passion. I was very passionate while making that game, that nothing bothered me. I wanted to finish it. I wanted to make it feel like an actually game. Sure, a lot was cut from that game as well, but the final project actually feels finished.

I was stuck on creating levels for Ignore Them, but seeing levels from Building Upon Them inspired me and gave me ideas for levels to create, and ended up causing the creation of 2 out of the 3 levels, and adding to the game's story.

Fourth Mistake: Lack of Passion => Quitting. Quitting => Cuts.

I quit making this game after what I saw. I left the Game Jam. I deleted the project. I left it.

I didn't want to put out a rushed product, while feeling annoyed at all the AAA devs putting out rushed, broken products. I didn't want to be a hypocrite, and I just lost all interest.

A day passed, thinking that I was OK, but there weren't really any courses that I was interested in anyways, so I was alright.

But, then, at the end of that day, I kept thinking; There are around 2 days left in the Jam. If I don't submit my game by then, I would regret quitting my whole life. Not because I would have missed a free course or anything, but because I just...quit.

I couldn't sleep.

So, I stayed up for like an hour, then I opened GitHub, re-downloaded the project, and started working on it, and said that I would finish it by today. Even if I hated it, even if I wasn't happy with it, I would just finish it.

But, A LOT more had to be cut.

And much more.

But, I "finished" it, built it, uploaded it, and went to take screenshots to upload for the game, but then noticed that the whole second level had EVERYTHING disabled. For no reason. So, I opened Unity again, rebuild the game again, then it actually worked that time. Then I uploaded the game again. (that's why it says version 2)

I really want to come back and actually finish this game, but I don't know. I wanted to finish Building Upon Them as well, but I didn't touch that game since, and it felt like a much bigger, better game compared to this.

Only time will tell.