If Only I Had Known…
Hey Space Cats! I hope you guys had a wonderful week; I’ve actually had an absolute blast working away on the game. I’ve made a lot of headway: a working main menu, a pause screen, and full game functionality! Now all I have to do is make it interesting and enjoyable to play lol.
It’s also funny because I’m learning so much day after day that by the time I go back to some of the first work that I did on this game, I’m embarrassed and have to redo it because it’s just so bad 😆 I think I’ve redrawn some of the sprites like 10 times. I’ve also tossed out quite a bit of stuff that just wasn’t working and didn’t look good. It’s definitely 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
I will say, however, that I’ve never had so much fun! Had I known game development would be this fun, I would have started 10 years earlier. I just was always intimidated by code…
Speaking of code, I wanted to share with you something that I’m really proud of! It’s essentially a power-up for the game that makes the gameplay more interesting and enjoyable. This, my friends, is CatNip Mode.
This still needs a bit of work, but the gist is there.
I have plans for a few other power-ups, some much more ambitious than the others, and I’m looking forward to implementing them in the coming weeks. Oh! And I also wanted to share this other snippet with you guys. This one I’m really proud of! (Even though it doesn’t change the game functionality at all, it definitely makes it more interesting and adds detail to the game.) What it does is it randomly spawns planets in the background at varying sizes and speeds to give the illusion that the cat is flying through space. Here’s a snippet of the code:
I’m really pleased with how this spawner works in the game! It adds some depth to an otherwise quite flat game.
Anyway, I’ve loved game development way more than I ever thought I would. Before, whenever I imagined game dev or even software development in general, I imagined a dude (usually) with crooked glasses and horrible BO in a dark, dank basement coding away while dozens of empty energy drink cans litter the floor and his desk. Yet, diving into game dev, I've found the reality couldn’t be further removed from the clichéd basement dweller scene I had in mind. Instead, it just might be a 30 year old woman, working in a beautiful, well-lit co-working office, giggling to herself as she makes a silly little game about a cat flying through space (with empty coffee mugs littered around her desk… don’t worry guys, I drink a lot of decaf 😆).
