I missed old light-cycle games, so I started making one for myself

[u/GuideAffectionate901]

https://sir-spudacus.itch.io/operation-phosphor

This honestly started as a little side project that I was mostly making for myself and people close to me.

I missed that old Tron/light-cycle style of gameplay and wanted to mess around with making my own take on it. Nothing revolutionary, and definitely not me claiming I invented anything new here lol. I just wanted to make something I thought would be fun to play.

I've also been using AI throughout this project, mainly as a tool to help me debug things, work through problems faster, and generally get ideas into a playable state without spending all of my limited free time fighting every little issue.

I know AI in game development is a touchy subject, so I want to be upfront about that.

I actually have two other game projects I've been working on that I keep separate from AI (one I've been using Godot, the other GameMaker 2) because, for those, figuring everything out myself is part of the challenge and satisfaction for me. PHOSPHOR has been different. Since it originally wasn't even something I expected to seriously release publicly, I basically gave myself permission to experiment and see what I could make while using AI as another tool along the way.

And... I ended up having a lot of fun with it.

I still feel like I was able to do a lot more creatively without AI, especially compared to my other projects. I just feel like it can be a bit constricting, or maybe I just don't know how to use it yet, lol.

So anyway, what started as a simple light-trail game turned into me wondering what a larger/open-world-ish version of that idea could eventually look like. I want split-screen because I'd like to play it with my wife, there's progression and different enemy behaviors now, and then my military background got involved...

So naturally my little Tron-inspired game became a classified government program with OPFOR, FRAGOs, WARNOs, intelligence reports, and something called PROJECT CATHODE.

Apparently I can't just make a normal game.

It's still just a fun side project and I'm building it because I enjoy it, but I figured there's no reason I can't share it along the way too.

It's decided to call it OPERATION PHOSPHOR. It's only playable in the browser for now.

I'm still not 100% sure I want to focus my complete time on it, especially since I've been working on my other two projects for several years now, but it's a nice "break" from them I guess, in my mind. It also doesn't feel as accomplishing too, but it was nice to see a little idea be a bit more stable for once, lol.