this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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As someone who quit his job to create a video game this makes me feel good.
I will probably fail, but that's a future feeling.
If you're making something you like, you can't really fail. :) That's the only way to be an artist in the face of criticism.
I love looking at my old work.
Then you never had to look at your old code (that tends to be of way worse quality than what you are currently coding due to improved skills) xD
I look at my old code all the time.
If you keep things organized and well documented, its poor quality really shouldn't bother that much.
While that's true and I do document my code, I still get the urge to rewrite big parts of it. In the end I will in fact rewrite it, but that's because I want to turn the original version of the code into a more general system that I can then use for my future work/projects.
As long as you're doing this for fun/function and not because you're embarrassed, then that's fine. :p I wrote my own tween library in javascript purely because that just sounded like a great weekend, haha.
I will turn it into a general system for two reasons:
1: Because I know I can rewrite my old code in much better quality
2: Because this is something that I and my work colleagues may need regularly, so we dont have to rewrite it from scratch every time.
Really? I have almost the exact opposite experience when I look at my old code.
I'm usually afraid that it's junk and I could've done better, but then I'm routinely impressed by what I've written and go "Man, I did a good job with this."
For me its because I do not code that mich, so when I coded like 6h a day for about 3 weeks I learned so much, that the stuff I wrote at the beginning of that 3 week time period looks kinda awful. There are some key elements that I would change if I would rewrite it, but I kinda dont want to, just for it to be a bit cleaner, since this would mean I would have to change a shit ton of stuff.
Best of luck to you!
Thank you, sir ❤️
Please provide your shameless plug ;)
I wish it were pluggable, I tried to get a gov grant for gamedev so started on a quick vertical slice but they said no because it's solo dev. So I've been focussed on mechanics and the vertical slice is all out of date.
No promo material yet.
There is a mastodon but I only show visual stuff, not had much recently. Probably do more harm than good but..
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@zataxia
Why would you do harm?
I am not much into zombie apocalypses, but you seem to have given a twist on community-building, and it's in pixel art! Do not give it up.
Thanks.
Just that it's a bit unprofessional and scrappy and prototypical. Can put some people off.
Oh, what are you working on?
The mistake i made was biting off more than i could chew. If i could do it over again i would make simpler games to understand end to end
I've been doing that in the background for a few years now (checks notes.. 15 years)
Background is software so I have a jumpstart on that.
I THOUGHT my project was relatively limited scope. But I must've been zoomed out in my brain because.. damn. It ain't.
Might be my only chance after I got a bit of funding, so just need to steamroll it, get something out there. Fingers crossed!
Did you get to release in some form?
I got caught up on specific features that would take me 4 months to implement. Like i was going to make a city builder and came up with a way to make dynamic realsitic roads with no compromises. Worked flawlessly, but thats not a game and i am one guy. Thats jusy one example, but the gist of it is i wasted too much time on single things and not just saying "make a simple clone of something start to finish".
Ah, yeah a lot of my past projects went that way. Just spent 2 months getting a ping pong shader system to work so you can have map level fog of war with a vision cone. Easy for a computer shader but mobile doesn't have good support apparently.
Road system is an achievement though, might be able to spin just that and a little more into a little game, like mini metro etc?
Some days I'm amazed how much I can get done but it's cancelled out by things that I thought would be quick and take weeks!
"we do these things not because they're easy, but because we thought they would be easy"
Good luck, just keep it real.
The general gaming community wants to sink money into MMOs and play call of duty slop. The majority is fine with subscriptions and battle passes. They use terms like bullet sponging. You'll never ever make them happy.
However, there are the minoritiew, the fans that just want good well thought out games, that don't need every mechanic, that are slightly addicting and just fun to play. The ones who think like you, focus on them.
I frequently go back to satisfactory and factorio. Factorio started as a small thing that they wanted to build, was crowd funded by people who wanted it, and big studios ignored because "the majority of gamers would never enjoy this". Try didn't care, they didn't want the majority audience, and by focusing on what they cared about they literally created the factory building genre. Their drive them spawned my favorite game satisfactory, another game that the industry didn't really believe in, and now it sits towards the top of the charts. Ignore the haters, ignore the majority. Focus on what you want to build.
Make sure to share with us once it's out!
Also, a Dev blog linked here somewhere could help you stay on track and attract your audience prior to the release!
I shall, thanks.
Very crude Dev blog/stream of conscience on mastodon, keep your expectations rock bottom, you'll still be disappointed!
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@zataxia
Yay, nice to see you have one!
Keep going and do some updates!
You never know.
Just being curious, what are you working on ?
I don't have any promo stuff ready yet but it's a top down, raid based looter.
Post zombie outbreak, trying to start a new safe community in a disused airbase. You go on raids to nearby city/village/etc to get stuff you need, find new survivors and so on.
It's primarily for mobile to scratch the Tarkov itch while on the bus, but I'll also put it on steam.
Edit; more info will follow at https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@zataxia but it's a bit sparse atm
Add a bit of RTS-stuff into it. Mobiles lack that kind of game
There is this third layer in my "phase 2" plan where you can set up defences in outpost regions and get an income from them if you can defend them, and the higher the local area threat the more often it needs defence, so it encourages you to be quiet in the associated raid map, more noise means it draws them in and threat level increases for next raid, strategy layer also gives you ways to get around it a little, like sending a team into the forest and letting off some fireworks, or destroying things in the raid itself that are causing them to gather.
Trying to keep the scope creep.. if not contained, then sliced off into phases. Paying rent will start to become an issue if I don't get a v1 out the door on time 😔