Flow Update #1 - Figuring out stuff!

Note: This is gonna sound scrambled. But hopefully I get my bearings in the future.

Hey Everyone!

I am Matt. I've got some diplomas in making games (Game Design and Game Programming) and also have been working in the games industry for a while! I've always liked playing games and got into making them at a young age. Nothing ever really came of it yet, but it's this thing I've always bounced back to. Something about being able to implement your ideas really scratches a certain itch you can't get in most places!

Anyways. Even with all that I'd say I am still a beginner in many ways. I think the first decade of developing games. I've been either working in a vacuum or hiding my games in fear I'd get a cease and desist (I heard a story from a close coworker of mine, so I was really scared of it).

But as  I got older, and I guess especially during covid. I realized why not just go for it? We all have a limited time on the planet anyways! (Plus now it seems like the companies I work for seem more "free" in allowing me to do indie on the side -- or maybe it was all self-perception )

Okay, now onto the content~

I've been making games for a while now on my own time. But a lot of the time. I hit quite a few snags on the road:

1. I feel like there is too much to do.
2. I feel like there isn't enough to do
3. I feel bored eventually 
4.  I have this feeling of "and then what?" a question I have for players and myself and this is one of the bigger issues I have. Which eventually leads me to stopping. Because I feel like maybe the project doesn't have legs.

Alot of the time. I write docs and to do lists and trello boards. And alot of the time. I am happy about what the game can turn into next. But in most situations it ends up on one of the issues mentioned above.

I have a tendency to over analyze and it quickly leads me to analysis paralysis. It works great for my QA job or my prior programming job. But in terms of design. I feel like it filters out any potential great ideas. And it's really hard to turn off from that.

Today I am starting a fresh project where I try to do something a little bit different from my usual ways.  One of them being trying to blog my adventures into making a game. The other is I am going to try my hardest not to over plan and get paralyzed on the what ifs.

Today I sat on Godot for a little bit and had an idea flash in my head..  It might've been from a movie I watched lately. I can't be sure.. haha.

Flying cars. Or rather maybe something like trials. And I just worked on the controller today

It took me an hour or so. I had issues trying to figure out traversing slopes.  

Right now I did something probably wrong, but I have a Rigidbody2D as the player character.  Then I have the force applied on front and back wheels. But for the slopes I just have a raycast checking the front then applying an upward force on the front wheels  to make it traverse up.

My grades in physics weren't the best.

It took me a bit, it's rough, but I think the output I got was kinda fun looking. It reminds me a bit of that car in Harry Potter.

I have some ideas on what I could do with this. Maybe a delivery game. Or a collection game. Or a racing game of sorts. But I'll leave that to my next session. Again to emphasize. I am going to try really hard not to over plan this game.  Maybe not even planning at all. I feel like alot of the time I do that and then it just becomes this mountain of work I have no hope of finishing.If you read this, thanks for your time! Maybe I'll have more game development things to say in next post.

Matt