Embarking on a New Journey: The Creation of Drag & Dice

Hello, World!

I’m excited to kick off my first devlog for Drag & Dice (working title), a passion project that represents my return to game development. Let me introduce myself and share the inspiration behind this journey.

Who Am I?

I’m a 37-year-old senior backend developer and DevOps from Portugal, with 15 years of experience in (mostly) JavaScript projects of all sizes, scopes and scales. Though my career has been deeply rooted in web development, my passion for games began much earlier. As a teen, I accidently self thought programming by creating games with DIV Game Studio and RPG Maker. Despite my subsequent focus on professional software development, my dream of making games one day is what initially motivated me and never quite faded.

Why Game Development Now?

The idea of being a game developer initially drove me to learn programming. On my 37th birthday, after almost 30 years from my first "Hello World" program (which i remember vividly of absolutely shattering my mind), I realized it was time to make my teenage self proud. This realization sparked a journey back into game development, focusing on creating something I would enjoy playing myself—a simple mobile game for short breaks during the day. I have never touched game development since my teenage years, so I’m excited to see how much the skills I’ve developed in the meantime will help me in this new adventure.

Introducing Drag & Dice

Drag & Dice is my prototype puzzle game with a fantasy RPG twist. You drag to connect gems, which translates into attacks during RPG combat. I chose this concept because puzzle games are relatively straightforward to develop and expand with new mechanics, making them ideal for a beginner like me, allowing an easy way to explore game development, especially the design and mechanics part, while keeping the scope small and manageable. I don't have more details to share at this point as I have but a fuzzy idea of what I want to achieve, but can't quite put it into words yet.

Development Journey So Far

Despite game development having little overlap with backend or even frontend development, my programming background provides a strong foundation and I can't really say I'm starting from scratch BUT despite having no issues with generic programming concepts, architecture, or design patterns, game development has a lot of concepts I have no familiarity with, so I will have to learn as I go. So far, I’ve dived into Godot 4, which I found perfect for making 2D games. I’ve spent a few hours learning the basics of it, reading some tutorials and watching some videos. I’ve managed to create a basic gem board and the drag logic—the foundation of the game’s mechanics. I also delved a bit into animation, movement and general special effects, just to have an idea of what was possible with Godot game engine. My focus will be on refining core mechanics so I can start playtesting before diving deeper into the RPG elements.

What’s Next?

I plan to expand the game’s features gradually.

• Given my limited artistic skills, I'll be purchasing some assets online, supporting indie artists in the process. I’m also learning how to handle asset attribution and credits properly.
• My goal is to have fun and enjoy this creative process, dedicating a couple of hours each evening without turning it into a second job.
• I might start a backend server next, as I want the game to have some support via the internet, like leaderboards or daily challenges, loot tables, etc. I also want to learn how to configure game states via a server, like loading a level or an item from a server request. I feel this is a requirement for the type of mobile game I have in mind. I'm also looking into pre-made BaaS solutions, but so far creating a simple JSON API seems to be the simplest way to persist some data. I don't want to continue developing with hardcoded values into GDScripts and then have to refactor to account for an API so I might as well get it done now

Join Me on This Adventure!

I’m thrilled to share this journey with you. Any feedback, advice, or encouragement is welcome. I’ll be posting updates on my progress, challenges, and lessons learned. Im not very active on social media, but I’ll try to keep this devlog updated regularly.

Thank you for reading,

— A Passionate Developer Rediscovering Game Development