It's been over 4 years now since what I would consider my very first game. It wasn't actually the first game I'd ever made, but it's the first game I actually put effort into rather than a basic project that took an hour at most. So much has changed since then, and it's interesting to look back on how things were going then and how they're going now.

This game was made in Scratch and took about a month or so. This was right around the height of the pandemic, so I finally had the time in quarantine to properly make a game like I'd always wanted to. I came up with this idea where the game itself was essentially trying to hide something from the player, and that the game would revolve around trying to uncover the secrets it hid and figure out what was actually going on.

The problem with this idea is that it's essentially lost to history. I had some elaborate concepts for what these secrets were, but I never wrote any of them down. They lived inside my head, and they unfortunately died there as well. So, for all anyone's concerned, this game really does have no story.

Just a bunch of vague, empty promises.

I don't look back on this game fondly. That's probably to be expected, since this was my first time properly committing myself and putting a game out there. What isn't expected, to me personally, is seeing the positive reception this got. There was criticism, of course, but it seems people generally enjoyed it. It even got popular enough to get stolen onto an obscure flash game website, which is just kinda funny to me.

I don't know if these people genuinely liked it or if they were just being nice, but it baffles me that we're able to see the same thing in completely different ways. My best guess is it's due to context. After all, everyone else only ever sees the finished game with no knowledge of what it's about or what to expect.

But when I see this game?

I see my 14 year old self, working on levels while in a car ride with his family, excitedly trying to put one of the many ideas he's had into something he can share with others. Trying to capture that idea in its fullest, but really only scratching the surface. Being too inexperienced to know how to fully explore this idea, and limited by the tools he knows how to use. It's something I look back on and cringe, as I know that the execution was butchered. I still like the idea, but this game doesn't do it justice.

And yet, I had a lot of fun working on it.

That's really the best that I can say about this game. It was a fun project. No matter how flawed, it scratched some itch in my brain to create. To share with the world what goes on in my head. It's an itch I've been trying to scratch my whole life, and even if it was only for a while, I'm thankful for that.

I've had plenty of ideas over the years, not just for video games but for books and songs and movies and shows. I've had ideas for everything and anything I could think of. However, most of them have faded into nonexistence. I'm never able to make something that lives up to the idea I have for it, to explain it in a way that gives others the same feeling that I have when thinking of them. So I usually don't. I keep it to myself, something for only me to enjoy.

But while this game may not have lived up to the idea I had, I'm glad that there's someone that was able to see past that. To enjoy it for what it is, not for what I wanted it to be. I don't think I'll ever be able to see this game that way, but maybe that's okay. I still don't like this game anymore, and I doubt that'll ever change, but I'm glad there was someone who was able to get something out of it.

I've changed a lot in the past 4 years. I picked up Godot and started using that instead. I participated in some game jams and made more games. I made some amazing friends, and even ended up making some music for the games they made. I found someone I love and started dating them. I graduated high school. I developed some mental health issues and started going through an identity crisis that I'm still going through today, trying to figure out who I am. Maybe I will someday, but that day is not today.

Most importantly to this blog post, however, is that I no longer really make games. I worked on a prototype for an online game recently for my computer engineering class, but that's it. Even the friends I made games with stopped. I began to express myself through my music. Game development was such a small part of my life looking back on it.

But I'm still thankful I did it.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, if there is even a point at all. Maybe there's some deep message here, or maybe I just needed to talk. Either way, if you're still reading this, then thanks for listening. For making it all the way through my ramblings. Hopefully you got something out of this. I don't know how I'll feel about this tomorrow morning, but for now, I'll post this little bit of writing.

Maybe in 4 years, I'll be able to look back on this and cringe just as hard.