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Love the idea, love the atmosphere, love the execution. It feels puzzley and fresh, something that I've been looking for recently.


Currently looking to get into game design as a hobby. Any suggestions on where to start? Perhaps this isn't the appropriate place to post this. If so I will delete if able. I have experience in many programming languages, but am a bit of a script kiddie. I'm just a former programmer with a ton of ideas.


If I can help you out with anything as well let me know and I will see if I can help.

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Not really a game designer myself, but one thing I've heard is to make a bunch of really small game projects, rapidly trying out ideas without over-investing in them. You might stumble onto something interesting, and then you can expand it if you think it'll be worthwhile. I hear game jams are good for this, and IIRC, the first version of Terra Nil was created during one.

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This is really great info!! Thanks a bunch for the reply. I have been looking to physical card and board games as a means to understand what it means to "find the fun" when it comes to game design, it's not as obvious as it is when I'm trying to learn a new programming language. I have been eyeing some game jams for a while and I need to make time to actually join one because I hear many people say how much great experience those are. Thanks again!!

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@ChaosFarseer's absolutely right! :)

I think if you're coming at it from a programming background, you might (based on my observations of others) have a tendency to be in love with how smart a system is, how clean a back-end, how "clever" a technical solution was, even though none of these might be things that a player actually experiences. If you're really interested in game design, it would likely be helpful to keep circling back to what has the largest effects on a player's experience. Sometimes a technical solution is very much needed, but often it's not (at least not to test out whether your game idea's any good). If you ever take a game further than a jam, it's likely you'll want to do it over, better, anyway, so spending more time on exploring an idea and less time on techie stuff is usually best bang-for-time-spent.

That said, if you're doing it as a hobby, then just do what you enjoy! I'd suggest still trying to make things with the intention of showing your friends and having them play them, and keeping your projects small, but if what you're doing and what you're learning brings you joy, then keep going! And if you're not enjoying it any more, then find something else that excites you. :)

This is more accurate than I would like to admit! I do find the transition from programming to "game design" to be a difficult one. Some things I can make, but I just don't find fun afterwards. I'm mostly doing this as a hobby and will continue to dabble in things. Thanks so much for the insightful response!!!

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Yup, seconded :)