Game Development: C'est Fini

The idea came to me around August 2025 to make a really simple RPG, with ASCII graphics inspired by Brogue, that would take place in a compelling, aesthetically original sci-fi world. I intended this to be a serious game, rather than a cringey throwaway project or excuse to write more blog posts about programming.

My hope was that, if I kept things simple, I would be able to focus on making this game fun without having to consider too many variables, and could deliver a demo release within less than a year. I began work on the game engine and, in parallel, developed the setting, characters, and story, often by daydreaming during lunch breaks. The setting came from disparate ideas and bits of inspiration, and it felt satisfying to work all those thoughts together into a coherent whole.

From the beginning, I intended to develop the "fun" component as soon as it became feasible; so the code didn't have to be perfect, and the UI could be sloppy - just enough functionality to begin prototyping and experimenting with game mechanics.

My first attempt at "fun" was combat against an overpowered enemy character. This character was faster than the player, had a powerful weapon, could leap forward suddenly, could push the player around, etc, etc, etc. It turns out this wasn't actually much fun. The player usually lost the fight, and could only win by applying some boring and unnatural strategy, like attacking, closing a door, healing, and then coming out the door to attack again: a technique known to gamers as "cheesing".

Having realized this was insufficient, I pondered the nature of fun, which led to the earlier blog post about puzzle and reflex mechanics. It seemed that my game ought to be a puzzle game; so I considered different puzzle mechanics, and ended up experimenting with beams and reflective boxes.

However, these concepts didn't end up feeling fun, at least to myself. It became evident that I'd have to experiment with different ideas far longer than originally planned. Part of this is because I'm barely into video games to begin with: I mainly enjoy Minecraft and Brogue; but other games, even Half-Life 2, are kind of boring.

Another issue is that my RPG was quickly turning into a full-blown puzzle game, rendering the sci-fi world I had lovingly brainstormed implausible, or even irrelevant. And really, this sci-fi world was the whole point: by then, I cared about it more than I cared about game development per se.

So, knowing that it would take an unbounded amount of development time to make this game to live up to my original aspirations (if such a thing were possible), I decided to stop working on it. There are plenty of other projects I want to work on, and it would be better to do small but numerous experiments rather than stake so much of my time on a really dubious game. In fact, an internet friend gave me nearly the same advice a couple years ago, and I had written it down, but had forgotten it until recently.