The Power of Slow Progress
It’s been a minute since my last DevLog. I suppose that’s fitting given it’s premise, but it feels like I’ve made significant progress and learned a lot since.
So much has happened, honestly, that I’m almost unsure where to begin. Last time, I was slowing down to focus on learning new things, and I’ve gone through that cycle a couple of times now. It’s paying off.
I managed to conduct a small playtest with a select group of game developers, and their feedback has been invaluable! The playtest wasn’t as extensive or detailed as I initially envisioned, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed.
The playtest primarily focused on the "feel" of the car—the driving experience. Their feedback validated some of my ideas and challenged others. It’s great! I’m really looking forward to digging into all of that to improve the feel of the car!
Of course to get things to a state where there could be a play test, there had to be an area to drive around. So, I had already gotten started with some degree of level design. By the time the feedback came in, I’d begun a new level, which I hope will become the game’s main level. However, this put me a position to have to decide between that work, and addressing the feedback from the playtest.
As a solo dev there’s no working in parallel. I’ve analyzed the feedback , and made an initial plan to address it all, But for now, I’m holding off until I finalize the level design. The design process made it pretty clear to me that I needed to spend some time learning how to do the basics of 3D modeling in blender.
So that’s where I’ve been for a week or so. Blender. It’s been REALLY fun learning how to create objects from scratch, and I’m working hard to honor and enjoy the learning process instead of rushing through a build motion.
I’ve made a handful of buildings, and four of them are good enough to be in my game! It’s exhilarating to see my ability to turn ideas into actual things growing. A thing I made - working in a real video game - that I also made... wow. Wow! I’m such a nerd.
Beyond my own models, I’ve been collecting, editing, and importing assets from various sources. My blender skills are not yet great, but I am no longer afraid of the tool.
I’ve still got some level work design work to do before I can put it on pause to go back to the car mechanics. For example: I’ve got an idea for a daytime window shader. However, implementing this would require redoing vertex colors for all buildings and reimporting them into Godot—plus updating all building scenes. It’s a daunting task, so I’m hesitant to proceed until I finalize my decision.
Which means I need to test a new shader idea on one of the buildings I created which already has the needed vertex coloring. Once that’s done, I can decide whether to move forward with the shader or hold off.
I can’t wait until I can have a small idea and build it without a herculean lift. Sometimes It bothers me that the more experienced game developers could have had my game idea knocked out in a month or so. BUT... But but but...
EVERY SINGLE THING I DO ... I have to figure out first. The stuff I’m learning is foundational. Whatever “it” is, the more experienced folks already know better ways to do it. I’ll be faster next time. And after that one too.
We’ll get there. Thanks for coming along.