Sprint 1 - Where do I begin?

Sprint 1 Reflections

September 25 - October 2

I'm going to start this with a small confession -- if I'm being honest, the first sprint really started back in July. That's when the first seeds of this project were being planted, and I had a whole vision for how this was going to go down. I was finally going to act like a Real Indie Dev™ and move on from tutorials to building a full game in Unity. I created the empty Unity project file and even coded a character controller.

Then it was September. I never got past Day One of that development effort. By this point, the news about Unity's new pricing model and the chaos that ensued was in full swing. While they did eventually come around to a more agreeable revenue sharing framework, the damage had been done. But this had an unintended side effect for me -- suddenly that empty project file that had been filling me with shame felt oddly unburdened. 

Now the question was back in front of me -- what are you going to do with this project? What I finally realized after asking this question -- the right question -- was that I'd gone about this all wrong. I was so focused on learning a tool and doing things "right" that I'd forgotten to actually be excited, invested, and thoughtful about the game I wanted to make. And as I noodled the idea in a notebook, of all places, I came to a realization that this game would've sucked.

So over a couple of days taking the train to-and-from New York in late September for an on-site meeting (about 3-4 hours a day round trip) I started riffing on the original idea and trying to make something that felt fun. You know. The thing games are supposed to be. And after those few days, I was finally on to something, a game idea that I wanted to be able to play. And, more importantly to me, a game I wanted to make.

Here's the pitch: A large patch of land that has been used for monoculture tree farming has been clear cut, and now it's being turned over to you to help rebuild a native habitat. You'll plant a variety of trees, shrubs, grasses, and other plants to build a sustainable polyculture by pairing companion plants, building up your overstory and understory, and encouraging wildlife and pollinators to return to the ecosystem.

The game will play something like an engine building (think Wingspan) or resource management game (think Catan), with a little sprinkle of farm sim (think Stardew) for good measure. As I worked on some of the mechanics by hand, it was clear this would be fun for anyone who likes these types of strategic, turn-based games where you have to plan moves out in advance and deal with changes introduced by your plays.

I'd already made a game in the open source Godot engine back when it was in v3.4, so it felt like the natural place to return for this next project now that Unity was off the table. At first I thought I'd work in 3D again, but quickly I realized how much work I'd need to do up front to get the game functioning in three dimensions (including a LOT of 3D modeling I was not yet ready to tackle) so for gameplay loop and demo purposes, I moved back to 2D and started with the basics of drawing a grid.

Overall, Sprint 1 ended up being a bit of a reset button for this project. It gave me the opportunity to reframe the question of why I was making this game and prove out (at least at a conceptual level) that this game could, in fact, be fun to play and was worth the time and effort to create it. I'm hoping to put something together by year end that's a playable game loop, keeping in mind that Q4 is a crazy time with work, family events and holidays, and all sorts of other year end commitments. That said, I'm hopeful I'm on the right track, and excited to do a bit more short-form logging about the actual game once it's actively in development.

Thanks for taking a moment to read this -- I'm looking forward to sharing more with you soon!