Progress?

Hey, Ben. I wanted to talk to you about the shadows in your game. I'm wanting to do a checkerboard pattern for my game's shadows as well, and I just don't know how to go about it. Could you explain it here, or message me on Discord about it? social cues#6703 I would appreciate it.

Excellent work,
Luke

Hey, the game looks great. Don't loose your head :D

I completely understand the position you're in. In fact, I had recently started working on my own Star Fox clone in Godot (I almost didn't when I saw you were working on one, but I figured two people might not approach it the same way (we should trade notes about it at some point!)), and I know how easy it is to get stuck on one thing for so long that you don't know how to move on past it.

So: keep it up! Ex Zodiac looks like it'll be a lot of fun to play!

I'd love to play Ex Zodiac, it would be great if you wanted to count with my feedback.

I want to play your game ever since i saw one snapshot of it! Although i'm only getting into game development this year, i can relate somewhat to your frustration about your design decisions. I Design and develop sites, and sometimes i tackle the task of doing a web product of my own, and frequently an ambitious one xD

i'm not going to throw suggestions at you because I cannot think of anything smart that could make a difference, but rather, i'm just going to say that i believe in you vision, and i want to play it! I believe in whatever you make, even if I would have done it differently myself, hell, even if i don't like it! Whatever you feel like doing in this game is more than welcome to me, and as a player, what i want is to see your take in this mechanic, not to have an outstanding amount of entertainment, but to see what you have to say. Because to me, making the best game you can is the the reward in and of itself.

Hope to see it come alive one day! I'll be waiting :)

First of all, let me tell you that I'm so looking forward to play your game! I love the source material, and had been wondering for some time why nobody was doing a proper homage, getting rid of some of the limitations of the era. I also love the low poly aesthetic; I'm so looking forward for it to enjoy a new revival similar to that of the pixel art.

About your situation, and that the development of your game, perhaps knowing of other experiences will help you, so here's mine.

I've been working on a game for a couple of years, without much previous, direct, experience.

One important thing is, I'm not working on it alone. Though I'm the one doing the programming, and learning along the way how to make it possible.

Early on I realized that my vision was overly ambitious, so the scope of the game has been scaled down several times. We're on the third devolution, and it's a drastically different and way simpler game. But we choose to keep things in the design that will help when/if we tackle the more ambitious game.

I guess what I want to say is, both managing the "size" of the challenge, and having a team (in my case, a friend), can get a long way to keep you working and keep going on. 

Being realistic about what can be achieved, is a must. Otherwise what awaits is failure. 

And I don't, I wouldn't feel ashamed of copying or cloning already invented game mechanics. As they say, you can only break the rules you know. It's all part of a process, and we all start imitating before we're ready to innovate.

There's another issue which be will be fighting soon enough, when most of the mechanics are in place, which is content creation. I would say the two most critical and harder to nail are both story and level design.

But here's an idea: Maybe with original characters, and a free level design tool, people can make their own story, and play their own game. Sure, I'd prefer to make my own game, batteries included, but if I manage to get that done, and I can't manage to create all the content I'd like to, I would still consider it a success!

Keep that in mind, whenever you don't feel like working on the game. Personally, as a programmer, I think working on other, related stuff, such as game tools, helps a lot. I'm not strictly working on the game, but I'm working for the game, which is still progress :)

You remind me of myself, some years ago. About 2 years ago, I finished my first "big" game (Fight'N Rage)... it tooks me 3.5 years to make it, and after the 2 first years, I was pretty confused, and frustrated too. My head was a mess... a combination of depression, anxiety and confusion... I litterally didn't know how to keep going... I was testing a lot of mechanics, and every thing I was doing just sucked. But I learned something from that... something that I resist to believe every single day: EVERYTHING you do, just will suck... at least at start. We live in a world where everything you see from others is a finished product, but you are seeying your own metamorphosis between an unfinished product into a finished one. In that situation, is easy to just "ask for permission" while examine other games, it's ok, and it's natural, just don't forget that other games were unfinished products too, and certainly they sucked (just play beta roms of good games... the streets of rage 2 beta for example, it really sucks!). Don't forget that us, as a rational human beigns, we are better on fixing things, than create things. So, the best you can do, if you really want to keep moving forward and finish your game, is just keep creating and fixing things. Create new things just forces you to fix those things... create bad things, and fix those bad things in order to make them good. Art and originality raises from mistakes, just forget about confidence... keep creating bad things, and then keep working hard in order to fix them into good things. Thinking in that way, helps me a lot to finish my first "big" game.
By the way... your game looks amazing. =)

Hey dude, I hope my post on the Ex Zodiac page wasn't upsetting at all, I can be a bit blunt sometimes!

I totally understand where you're coming from now. As a programmer staying focused on a single project has always been a problem, and I think that a big part of the reason game jams have caught on is -- making something within a timeframe that can keep your attention.

A full sized project is a lot of work and even though a lot of problems as "solved" by engines for you (you don't have to blip polygons to the screen by hand,) they're replaced by new problems in the form of complexity. 

If you think releasing a public demo would help your motivation then I say you should go for it, but you really need to be introspective on what is holding your motivation back. Perhaps some feedback could be cathartic, but maybe you are just burned out on the project.

I completely empathize with you. Game dev can be really challenging when done solo, especially when something was perceived as simple and straight forward becomes a big ordeal. It feels like it should be easier than it is (especially when you take a step back and look at all you've made), and you might start blaming yourself instead of the unseen complexity that is the game that you are creating.

I just want to say that I've been there, and I am not the only one. There are many other game devs out there that are in a similar struggle and have overcome it or are in a similar bind currently. Reaching out to talk shop can be very cathartic, and I urge you to do so!

My discord tab is always open if you want someone to talk to about this :)