I’ve managed once a month so far, and wasn’t about to stop.

The whole “focus” thing really goes out the window fairly often for me. Things come up (turns out living a life makes it hard to program games sometimes), and I’m easily discouraged by building anything complex, but everything I try to make is. I’m trying something else now: Building around a core mechanic. The games I’ve been trying to make in the last few months are management-y strategy-y things, mainly because that’s what I play. I’ve spent an embarrassing number of hours playing EU4, CK2, Civilization 4 and 5 and (even more so) Aurora4x and Dwarf Fortress. As it turns out, those are quite time consuming and challenging to make. The problem I have building anything similar is that there are too many interlocking systems that all need to exist before it really becomes a game: EU4 isn’t about combat or diplomacy or trade or religion or politics specifically, but remove any of those systems and the game will feel incomplete.

The new idea is to make one mechanic, one basic motion, that feels really good to do. I’m thinking a spear thrust. There’s something very visceral about it, and I think I can pull it off decently well. Once I’ve got that, I’ll try to make a game around it. Starting with something that is fun to do on its own seems like a better way to begin than saying “I’m building a space commercial empire simulator, and we’ll need combat and trading and promotions and corporate structure and factions and diplomacy before it will feel good.” Every once in a while I remember the episode of Extra Credits that encourages building a “minimum viable product,” meaning the simplest game you can build that is still the game you’re building – a three-week prototype. I’m making that now. Wish me luck.