Designing merch is not the only side-project I have been busy with, I have also been “secretly” getting into this whole game development scene, and oh boy has it been exciting!
I am supposed to be working on my novel, but like all great procrastinators – I have been distracted by other… stuff!
After finishing up with my Merch Design project “shhh be quiet v1”, I almost immediately jumped into game development.
However, I would be lying if I said this is my first go at it.
Prior to beginning on the aforementioned novel, I was doing some dabbling in the Unity3D game engine – while working on a different novel.
Doesn’t take a genius to see a pattern here!
But of course my game development career started way before even that! The question is how far back can I go before it no longer counts as game development?
If you met me back in the late 90s- and early 2000, then you would have met a hyper-active-geek making mods and maps for Half-life, Counter-Strike, StarCraft, Morrowind, Age of Empires 1, 2, and 3, Heroes of Might & Magic 3, Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2—basically, if it was moddable then I was there trying it out!
However, it was nothing serious, very few people played my creations, it was usually friends and family. I wish I had never stopped creating, but I was young and wasn’t thinking about it as a career, it was just “for fun”.
But my game development activities go even further back than that! I used to make card games, table-top games and other poor-man’s games to entertain my siblings. Not to mention coloring books and short stories, but those are not game development.
So I’m literally just doing what I have always been doing. The real issue- and regret, is I stopped doing it, but that is a story for another time.
I’m writing all this only to distract you from the fact that I am supposed to be working on my novel!
Anyways, let’s get back on point.
After finishing my Merch Design project, I started to take game development more serious and was busy with it this whole time.
It’s an exciting world but it is also easy to get lost and become blind to the reality of game development. Especially from the outside if you have not worked with game development yourself!
It’s not a simple endeavor. No matter how great the tools for making games become, it will never compensate for the biggest obstacle in game development, namely HARD WORK.
It doesn’t matter if you wake up tomorrow as a professional programmer, 3D modeler, animator, etc. No amount of knowledge will replace actual work.
But that too is beyond the scope of this article!
I’m just trying really hard to make you forget that I am supposed to be working on my novel!
I have been busy developing multiple games, working on each title as my knowledge and expertise “levels up”.
This is an important work ethic if you are a solo-game developer, you don’t want to finish a project unless you have tried multiple approaches to solve ONE problem.
For example, it took me 6 month to develop a proper camera system for platform games.
Now, I’m not saying I worked on a camera system for 6 months straight, heck no!
What I am saying however is that I needed to experiment for 6 months and try different things before I figured out what I needed it to do and how to make it do what I want it to do!
And you can’t test a system in a vacuum.
You need an environment to test the system. And if you want your system to work in different environments, then the harsh reality is that you must test it in different environments… which means you need to create those environments.
Wait, why the heck am I discussing game design, let’s leave that for future tutorials or something.
I am now developing a game that will be my first commercial release!
Work began on the 1st of August this year.
It has been very intensive these last couple of months and I am far from finished, there are still some systems that need more development, and then some detailing, fine-tuning and balancing here and there.
I am really happy and excited about releasing the game, I’m not expecting a “rags to riches” success. The real goal is to see people enjoy my games, because at the end of the day that is the only thing that truly matters. Although it would have been nice to afford more than noodles for a change!
And of course, as a master of procrastination I worked on a side-project while working on my game- which itself is s a side-project to the novel I’m supposed to be writing…
The side-SIDE-project is a small platformer game that I work on whenever I need to take a short break to relax and gather my thoughts.
If you are a game developer, then I highly recommend having a small project that isn’t too serious, a stress-free project where you can experiment and just have fun.
Anyhow, the side-SIDE-project is called “Wehbe’s Endless Platformer” (the title is a work in progress (UPDATE: name has since been updated to Caveman vs Cave™)), I made it using the Godot game engine.
The game is a simple physics based platformer, you control a character that has lots of hair and a big nose, which affects the physics of the game, so you better be careful. You could say it is a “simulation” to help you understand how it is to live as a big-nosed hairy person.
There are currently only 3 different levels, but they loop randomly forever. The goal is to clear as many levels as you can.
It is an HTML5 game so you can basically play it on any system that can use a browser. I added touch screen controls just recently so it should work on most mobile devices as well! Except on super old mobile devices. Make sure to turn off and hide the touch controls if you’re not on a mobile device. Gamepad controls should also work, but I can’t promise anything. Just try to push some buttons on your gamepad and see if anything happens.
Again, it is a work in progress, and I only work on it in-between breaks from my main project! I will debug it and add content slowly over time.
I hope you will give it a try! I made the game for people to challenge their friends to see who can clear the most levels. Good luck, have fun!
You can use the navigation menu to find it in the game sections or use the link here: https://ahmadwehbe.com/caveman-vs-cave
Peace & GOD bless!
