Category: Game Development

I’ve probably repeated many times how difficult game development is… or rather, how difficult it is to make the sort of game I’ve set my heart on (alone). I’ve been developing Exon‘s first big mission, a multi-part dungeon which has required all-new artwork: rocks, industrial equipment, even animals. I spent a long time working on the opening Academy level, so the environment — and the requisite decoration art — came together at a leisurely and natural pace. Meanwhile, trying to forcibly flesh out a whole brand new biome has been somewhat painful.

So I’m procrastinating. I’m faffing. I’ve been working on random bits and pieces that do not serve the short-term goal of “finishing the rest of the prologue”, because random bits and pieces is still better progress than just staring at the walls.

Random encounters have been on my mind a lot recently, because I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time. However, even before I was 25 years late to that seminal JRPG party, the well-established Baldur’s Gate influence ensured that random encounters would be on Exon‘s roadmap. In the mood for a break from working on the dark underground mine levels (and the obligatory Towers of Hanoi puzzle within), I decided it was high time I got some sun-soaked wilderness battle arenas in there.

I went down to London to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark at the Royal Albert Hall this week. That was on Monday, and since I got the train back on the Tuesday, I figured I might as well take the rest of the week off work too. Go hard or go home, am I right? (Or in this case, do both.)

That gave me a few days to work on something a bit meatier than usual, the kind of work that I shy away from because, while it may be necessary, it’s complex and scary. Why did somebody so full of fear take up solo game development? That’s a question I ask myself every day.