So I started to make a videogame. I want to share bit of the process here, for those interest of what it means for a 40 years old father-of-one working full time to do so.
The game I am making is quite simple. It’s a transporation management sim inspired by 1987 Ports of Call. The game will basically allow you to load cargo, journey to its destination and get paid for moving that cargo. You will also be able to talk to people along the way. With the ressource you acquire, you make youself a living. All this is done mostly through UI (user interface – fields, buttons, printed texts), That’s all.
Before starting to make the game, I wanted to freshen-up my development skills. Twenty-five years ago, I dabble in programming in Visual Basics 6, and I did a bit of HTML/CSS/Javascript 15 years ago. But that’s it. So I followed the MOOC of Introduction to Programming and Advanced Course in Programming from University of Helsinky. It’s free, very hads-on and I found it great. You can follow 2026 course there: https://programming-26.mooc.fi.
After that, I chose the engine in which I wanted to build the game. As the goals is before anything to be able to contribute to my partner’s game, we took this decision together, and ended-up opting for Godot. It’s free, open-source, quite mature and its own scripting language (GDScript) is very close to Python which was the language on which the course I followed was based.
And now, I’m making the game, spending one or two hours each evening after day of work and my family hours to try to build something. I’m not a very good builder, I tend to be discouraged very quicly when I don’t get what I want. That’s why I try to approach the build in an iterative way: I want to achieve a more or less complete core gameplay loop even if very rough before polishing each part bit by bit.
At this stage, I have created 3 locations and you can move between them in a set order instantly. I have populated those locations with a few characters. I have created a few cargos that you can load and drop, and earn money from it. I have also built a basic dialogue engine and added discussions of different types with one characters. In a way, a good chunk of the systems are now available, even if in a very limited state and with placeholder assets.
My next goal (beside building a few debug / testing tools to be able to manipulate the game state easily) will be to integrate a bit more content to be able to manage multiple scenarios and identify lacking building blocks in the current foundation of the game. After that, I will get to build the travel screen to replace the instantaneous travel currently implemented, which will be the only one with animated sprites, something I am very uncomfortable with.