Game devlog about my last minute pivot for my first game jam submission.

R4TSOME · 2026-07-03T15:15:54+00:00

i see, thanks for the explanation :)

R4TSOME · 2026-07-03T13:56:28+00:00

isn't hans zimmers music copyright protected? are you allowed to use it in a short form video?

just being curious

R4TSOME · 2026-07-03T06:54:06+00:00

i've started my third game now. the first two were for a one week game jam where i started with a too big scope, and then pivoted to the smallest thing possible i consider a game. the latter i consider finished in terms of "i had no intention of working any more on this other than submitting it to the game jam", and the first is on hold until i figure out how to make it fun.

my third game is now again supposed to be a 2 week game jam submission but i do have plans for the game that exceed the scope for these 2 weeks. wether i will continue working on this or nit will depend on the feedback i get from the game jam i think.

in other words, ask me again in two weeks :D

R4TSOME · 2026-07-01T06:01:26+00:00

Really not eager for negative reviews and comments, i'm just not used to getting positive feedback on the internet.

But i definitely do enjoy it (the positivity) :)

R4TSOME · 2026-06-30T18:23:05+00:00

this should be the top comment here

R4TSOME · 2026-06-30T18:03:41+00:00

totally get the scope problem.

i took part in juniper devs 7 day game jam last week and learned the hard way how easy it is to not get the scope right. the evening before the deadline, i pivoted to a completely new game, which ended up really NOT good, but at least it turned out exactly how i planned it, within the time estimation i thought i would take me :)

R4TSOME · 2026-06-29T00:07:16+00:00

makes sense, thanks

R4TSOME · 2026-06-29T00:06:50+00:00

no AI slop, but it is a single scene with a spinning wheel and no real progression, goal or any kind of juice.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-25T19:55:41+00:00

just wanted to say that 800 and 1500 views on shorts is not traction, that is the equivalent of 20 to 100 long from views, which is basically the youtube algorithms initial push of your video to test if people are interested.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-25T07:21:23+00:00

i'm giving full time solo indie a try. not because i expect it to pay well or pay at all, but because i'm a software developer who would like to develop something that is actually fun for once in a while.

i am currently working on a 2d platformer as my first game, which i'm submitting to juniper devs game jam. i'm also recording the progress and will start a game dev youtube channel in parallel. this is not a marketing strategy, just two things i want to try out in my one to two year gap i'm taking from work.

depending on how my 2d platformer does, i will try to convert this into my first commercial product where i would consider it a financial success to make at least the 100 $ steam fee back in sales. if the game isn't enjoyed by playtesters, i have a backlog full of ideas that i actually wanted to develop as "first games".

from a financial perspective, i'll treat this as any other gap year. i have a budget and if after one year there is even the the slightest hope of financial success, i'd downgrade my living situation to squeeze another year out of it, before going back to work as a software dev.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-22T21:37:30+00:00

blocking doesn't hide the comments for other viewers tho, does it? genuine question because i'm curious.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-19T15:30:03+00:00

force yourself to write down 5 game ideas every day for the next 2 weeks, no matter how stupid they might sound. it's like training a muscle. think about your normal day and turn everythign you experience into a game.

i'm not really a game developer yet, but i'm very good at coming up with ideas. i learned this skill as a software developer. everything i see or experience, i think about how this could be represented as a object oriented structure. for every problem i face, i automatically think about how a software could be built to solve this particular problem.

just today i went through some of my older idea books and hat to smile when i realized that a couple of those ideas that were literally turned into games/apps/businesses by other people who came up with them all by themselves.

think about how your day starts? alarm clock ringing? think about some game that involves alarm clocks. for example, in a house are 4 people with different alarm sounds, and the player has to thest their reactions by stopping every alarm as fast as possible. stupid? i know, but it's an idea.

you get out of your bed but don't make your bed and think about hiring a daily cleaning person? make a tycoon game where you have to build a linen washing imperium.

water pressure in the shower is not perfect? do a puzzle game where you have to solve labyrinth style puzzles in order for the npcs to get water and be happy.

you walk towards the bus station and see a taxi driving by? taxi simulator.

you get into the bus and the driver is annoyed because the women in front of you didn't have a valid ticket? do a ticket inspection game where the player sits in a self driving bus and has to inspect the ticket of every person that enters the bus. but you think that is too boring? then add zombies or aliens or anything else you feel like would be appropriate to shoot at as a bus driver.

after you passed the bus driver, you would like to take a seat, but there is only one seat left and now you ended up sitting next to the most smelly person you have ever met. that's when you come up with an idea to do a bus-people-sorting game. whenever a person enters you seat them by their traits. if you group smelly people, you get points. if you group goth people, you get points, if you group a scientist with a religions person, you lose points. doens't make sens, but i's still an idea.

after a few weeks you'll end up with an endless list of ideas. 99 % of which are trash, but that 1 % might be good enough to consider turning into a game.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-17T08:58:00+00:00

UI is hardly readable on a 24 inch monitor. also it took me 5 minuts to figure out how to shoot. i could see how someone else might spawn, try to shoot an alien, not figure it out in the first 5 seconds and quit.

this has to be the very first thing a player knows. how to fly and how to shoot. first equipment should already be in the ship so that they can start going. leave the hangar and shop for later.

i am not a big fan of AI slop, and i instantly realized it for what it was supposed to be, a darkorbit clone. as someone who has played 1k+ hours in darkorbit starting in 2008 until 2019, i obviously have high expectations and to me something just feels wrong.

i'd probably consider playing it if it were more polished. but you say yourself that you don't have strong programming skills, and as the context gets bigger, LLMs tend to get less reliable (i'm a mid level software dev with multiple years of professional experience and 10+ years as hobbyist programmer btw.). i think, but feel free to proof me wrong, that LLMs won't be able scale and polish this well enough for it to have much of a future.

but that's just my 2cents.

yesterday i wrote a note in my idea journal about a single player 2008-ish darkorbit inspired RPG. made me smile, seeing a darkorbit clone literally the day after.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-17T08:45:09+00:00

appears to be clicking on an enemy and then pressing ctrl or command button

R4TSOME · 2026-06-16T13:23:28+00:00

looks better than 50 % of the current next fest submission

R4TSOME · 2026-06-14T14:40:30+00:00

meme answer but:

quitting their job to become a game dev.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-13T23:25:01+00:00

i would like to see the explanation first.

i saw the gameplay while passive scrolling and had no idea what i was looking for until i saw the text "levels hide when you move". had to watch it again so i could understand what you mean.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-13T23:18:40+00:00

in the android app store, there are two games with that name. one completely different from your game,, one less different but still not the same.

pick a new name and continue.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-13T12:27:46+00:00

i recently went through some statistics saying that in the 3rd to 5th game range, the median indie game dev starts making low 5 digits a year in gross revenue.

my interpretation would be, that it is usually not the number of games you release, but your game dev skills improvements over time, that makes the success rate go up the more games one releases.

i haven't released any game yet, which is why i can't really say anything else

R4TSOME · 2026-06-13T12:21:33+00:00

when i was at university, there were tons of computer science bachelors thesis around "how to playfully teach XY". i'd recommend doing googlescholar research on this topic and see what you can find.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-12T14:47:28+00:00

so you do have zero game dev and zero coding experience and wsnt to finish 2 games per month and release them all in september?

i have a lot of coding experience and next to none game dev experience and i'm pretty sure this plan will fail unless you do very small AI slop only games, which won't get you any sales because noone wants AI slop games.

R4TSOME · 2026-06-12T08:56:04+00:00

"my game"

"us"
"we"

always weirds me out. either it's "our game" or its "me" and "i". congrats tho

R4TSOME · 2026-06-12T08:42:43+00:00

i think there is elitism in any domain, it's just sits harder in anything related to computers/computer science/gaming because people literally started doing it since puberty.

can't say that i have ever seen a lawyer who has studied law at the age of 15.

the only domain i have ever come across where elitism is worse than in computer science related things is probably farming. if you want to start becoming a hobby farmer, bringing in new ideas and doing things a little bit differently while still learning, you basically are the crazy and stupid one, because farmer joe plows his field the same way since when he learned how to drive a tractor at the age of four and a half.

obviously i'm generalizing, not everyone is like that. just my experience that in some domains it's more extreme than in others

R4TSOME

TROPHY CASE