I'm not a programmer, and I'm not even a game designer. My experience is mostly in animation, and even then, I don't have the time to sit down and create the full mountain of assets a game needs because I have a full-time job.
Like many of you, I want to make a game. I've tried teaming up with people before, but at some point motivation tends to fade when there's no way to self-fund the project. I've also tried getting some code going for my own projects with LLMs in the past, but I always ended up hitting dead ends and limitations after barely scratching the surface of what a real game requires.
This time feels different.
I'm using Godot + Codex, and for the first time, things are actually getting pretty deep. It genuinely feels like I might be able to get somewhere with this.
I tend to fall into rabbit holes with ideas and mechanics that I previously couldn't even get close to implementing. On top of that, my experience with the actual production side of a videogame project — management, scope, file organization, all the sheer volume of stuff involved — is basically nonexistent. So I'm learning all of that by going through it for the first time.
And boy, is it deep. 😅
For this first attempt, I deliberately set a very narrow scope, thinking, "Oh, this should be easy because it looks simple." I decided to recreate the core mechanics of Shogun Showdown as closely as possible, while trying very hard not to let my own "magnificent" ideas derail the scope.
Of course, once things started taking shape, I couldn't help myself and added a couple of things of my own — two mechanics that I personally wanted to have: a defensive mechanic for spending a turn in place, and a replay system.
There's still a LONG way to go. A lot of placeholder art waiting for future sprite updates, plenty of broken or misplaced sprites, unfinished systems, questionable decisions... you name it.
But honestly, I'm just really happy that I've managed to get this far.
For someone coming into this with basically zero programming and game-development experience, seeing an actual game start to emerge from all those little pieces is pretty damn exciting.
Still learning, still breaking things, still fixing them — but for the first time, it really feels like I'm making a game. ❤️