In what is tantamount to a Christmas miracle, I have finished the first build of my game.

It took me 6 months, 16 written devlogs, and 4 video devlogs, to make a 2-minute long game. I am very proud of crossing the finishing line, but am eager to move on. I learned a tremendous amount about Godot making this typing railshooter game. I had a lot of fun with certain parts of making the game, and surprisingly, very much disliked other parts of game design. I have learned, for instance, that I do not enjoy the process of sculpting and designing a level or playable arena.

This game, and my YouTube videos surrounding it, took a significant amount of effort. Far more effort than I was expecting honestly. The first commit for my zombie game, back before I knew it was going to be a zombie game, was August 15th, 2023. It took me a little over six months to complete what I thought would be a month, maybe two months project tops. So what took me so long? Let’s review.

  • I didn’t know what kind of game I was making. The project folder name is “3dgame” because all I knew was that I wanted to make something in 3D. After all, I never have before.
  • Everything I attempted was novel to me. Making a text parser in Godot 4 to handle text inputs? Novel. Working with Blender to rig 3D models with animations and skins? Novel. Working with Godot’s animation-player to handle literally everything in my game? Never used them before.
  • I mostly worked in 30-45 minute increments before WFH days. I have proven to myself I can create a game by working in small increments, but I think if I could have worked on it a bit more consistently I could have made a lot more progress.
  • Loss of passion. I’d say at maybe the 4th month mark I grew tired of working on my game. Designing the city felt like a chore, and since my game is essentially one long cutscene, adding more content grew very monotonous and repetitive.
  • I made a total of four YouTube videos to help detail my game. Making these small little videos realistically replaced weeks of work, as I’d spend my 3 WFH days recording and editing instead of chipping away at my game.

I still want to make a small trailer for the game and do a “proper” release. I think that will be a Reddit post on the Godot forums.

Finally, I didn’t intend for this marcussnow.dev to become solely dedicated to my game dev activities. I am happy the site is getting used, but it feels like this website shouldn’t be a dumping ground for devlogs. In 2024, I think this website will become a bit more academic in content, and I’ll make a separate (much more personal) website that holds all my progress.