So I’ve really been neglecting the “code” aspect of Prose Poetry Code lately. I’ve been far more focused on writing than writing programs, and it shows. Let’s change that. Let’s make a game.
The month of June has five Wednesdays this year. The first one is today, June 1. That’s the starting line. By June 29, four weeks from the day this is posted, I hope to have…something. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I want it to be more than my previous aborted attempts at actually creating a game.
Here’s the idea. I think Godot is a great game engine for indie developers on a budget, as I’ve said more than once on here. Now, I’m going to put my (lack of) money where my mouth is. My game will be simple enough, a little word-building game that’s a bit like a cross between Tetris and Boggle. Blocks containing letters fall from the top of the screen, and the player has to arrange them to form English words. Each word formed counts for points (based on the length of the word and possibly other factors) and it is removed from the board after it is made. If the player runs out of space on the board, it’s Game Over.
That’s what I have so far. I’ll worry about combos, difficulty levels, and things like that along the way. Think of this more like a game jam entry than a design document. Hopefully, by starting small, I’ll manage to end the month with something playable.
For those interested, here are the technicalities:
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Although I’m writing this post on May 4, and I’ve already created an empty Godot project, I won’t start coding until this post is up, on June 1.
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The goal is to have a playable game by June 29. It won’t be a finished product by any means, but I want something that could reasonably be called an alpha by that time.
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I’m using Godot for the engine, and the assets are coming from OpenGameArt. At the end of this, I may put all of it up for download, but I don’t know yet.
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Each Wednesday, I’ll post a bit of a status report. Those will make up the Code posts for this month. (Software Internals will return the first week of July.)
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Other posts (worldbuilding, conlang, etc.) are still on schedule. I write those beforehand, mostly when I’m bored, so I should have a month of them stored up.
You’re welcome to play along at home. This isn’t a competition, though. If I can’t do it, then I can’t. So don’t expect me to push myself like I do for NaNoWriMo. Besides, there aren’t really any metrics for development like a word count. Counting lines of code isn’t that helpful, because nobody can predict how many of them you’d need. And finally, this is meant to be fun and educational for me, but I hope you take the same time to explore for yourself.
With that, I’m out for this week. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.