Working Title: Adventur

Holed up in a hotel room in 2016, I started working on a top-down RPG. I was working through a few LibGDX tutorials, the graphics were simple pixels I pushed together in Photoshop.

I’ve been building simple demos for a while, I pretty much have the architecture figured out: make a 2-d integer array for the map, an array of entity objects, and code to iterate through them and update the screen. I was pretty sure I knew what was what.

So: within a few hours I had a guy you could move around on the screen, and some other guys shuffling aimlessly around him. Neat!

However: the enormity of the task started to dawn on me. An inventory system, trading, combat, dialog trees, loading maps, saving and loading game states. Not to mention a story, graphics, sounds, music…

Yet: I am undeterred. Small steps, build components, limit dependencies, iterate. Above everything else, this is a fun exercise.

Right Where You Are Sitting Now.

I can kind of remember when I first thought about making video games. It was a few years after I first thought about making comics. Around the time when computers were of the 386 variety with 2 megs of RAM. I bought a book along the lines of “Teach Yourself C in 21 Days” and was fascinated with the idea of programming. But then, at least, I had no clue how to continue.

In 2020, though, I feel like the only thing standing in my way is finding the mental energy to sit and focus. Everything a person needs to learn how to program and make games is a download or a Youtube video away. I’m building Adventur on a laptop you can get for less than $100 on Ebay.

But this isn’t really about making video games, it’s about finding a thing you want to do. Everything is out there now. Want to learn how to paint? Build an electric car? Raise chickens? Start a country?

Stay busy, my friends.