Recognizing "My GameDev" Nudges

PICO-8 Education Edition Extended Release Thumbnail. Taken from Lexaloffle.

It's been a while since I talked about practically "nothing" here outside monthly update posts, so I guess I will use that opportunity to just share something I've started to consistently notice. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I don't have a clear path in life when it comes to my overall future. No matter how much I try to pick a proper direction of normal productivity, there's nothing I can settle on. However, I tend to often overthink stuff.

As time goes on, I started to notice a certain pattern in my surroundings. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my subconsciousness and/or reality (or whatever you wish to call it) tries to push me towards one specific profession. And that's what I wanna share with you, wandering reader.

Inner Signs.

While I've always been interested in how games are made and evolved throughout creative process, lately this topic feels much closer to me than ever. Nowadays I know or have friends that one way or the other involved with game development. For a while it was limited to becoming friends with a cool guy that just happened to be a level designer through Twitch. Funnily enough, I still haven't really bothered him about his work much or even asked him about potentially helping me with another "A Little Chat" post since it feels... I don't know, too easy? Not exactly right, I can't come up with the right word.

Meanwhile, two of my good friends from back in my World of Warcraft days that I got to know via roleplaying and being active on official Russian Story Forums. First one decided to sign for game developer courses after graduating from university. He seems to be doing well and now should be fighting against Unreal Engine, even though I was that stubborn voice that tried to push me towards Unity and other engines. I don't think he had much choice there, but it's not like I'm his boss or anything like that. Another friend keeps doing well with his drawing hobby, to point he became involved in helping with some mobile game. Ironically enough, both of them helped me financially in my time of need.

Outer Signs.

Outside my bubble, it's all about observation. Besides that scuffed interview with Revae, which was pretty awesome! I'm still thankful that he actually agreed to that, even if it didn't seemingly around the same amount of attention as his hobby hosting project CLOVR. Then it came to watching at how awesome community projects like Violent Rumble were made by creative anonymous. Going back to full-on games, let's take Project Warlock as an example. Seems like a pretty dope game and its sole developer was Jakub "Kuba" Cisło, who created it while still attending high school. While I just totally blew it at end and sometimes struggle to write some text.

I think it's fair to say that even if getting into game development is still pretty tough, there's a lot of effort being put into providing enthusiasts with lower bar of entry. Good example of that would be the growing popularity of GZDoom as an engine of choice for Retro FPS titles by starting developers & teams. However, what I really want to talk about is more niche platforms. First batch of cute little Playdate consoles started to reach its owner, and game making tool Pulp has been available for free to everyone since late January 2022. On top of that, zep just recently released PICO-8 Education Edition for browsers. It's not only free, but also doesn't even require an account to be made! That's like a dedicated "attack" towards lazy & miserable bastards like me.

Conclusion.

Yeah, I'm glad to get that out of my chest. Even something as silly as that really makes you think sometimes about your place in this world. It proves that I'm a total mess and self-awarness just can't help with that. Despite my doubts and worries, I still think that there's a way for me to become a game developer if that's the direction I end up going. Even with scuffed undead laptop that's clearly outdated. Even in current enviourment formed by certain tragic events I don't want to specifically mention becuase I am a coward.

Besides supporting my friends in thier endeavours, what can I do? I've previously entertained the idea of reaching gamedev through creations of mods and/or maps for some title. There're a lot of open gates for me to go through in that regard. Even though I would more likely to write more "Just an Idea" posts, which isn't bad on itself. I guess that's a beehive I can (and maybe should) poke at every now and then.