I recently started learning game development using Godot. It has been a while since I started learning a completely new skill, and I am feeling the pain in my bones.
The Attraction
After a certain point of learning anything, you are naturally drawn away to other skills. They may be complimentary or something you normally wouldn’t touch with a broomstick. You start to see your potential with your new shiny tools and get thrown into a euphoria of your imagined competence.
It is not too farfetched to think that adding singing to your dancing portfolio, or video editing to your acting portfolio can take you atop the stairway of heaven. You will be among the chosen few who can execute full projects single-handedly. It is your time to be the south Indian film hero walking into a room of bad guys.
The excitement leads your research, you form a plan and you get going at mach speed, only to realize that you are on the highway to hell. Things are not very intuitive. The absolute authority you exercised before has been lost. Can this old dog really power through this uphill battle to glory?
The Old Dog
This is not my first rodeo learning something technical. I have been animating and creating 2D and 3D art for a while and have picked up the ropes over time. I can watch people talk about this stuff for hours, and come out of it as if I just watched Vijay Salgaonkar talk about his October family trips. Even if it is a new domain like sculpting, I can confidently approach the clay ball and whip up something to look at in a few hours.
I had reached a point of comfort in this domain that I could blast through any peril with unwavering emotions.
Although, when you form a connection with your hobbies on that level things start to lose their magic. I am not blown away looking at the same spinning doughnuts now. I suppose this is natural as you gain expertise in anything. While I still wanted to improve my abilities in this domain, maybe I could pick up another or two? Maybe two to three years down the line I feel the same comfort with these skills and can single-handedly create entire experiences? OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH BOI THAT JUST GOT ME FIRED UP!
As the black-eyed peas say, “Everybody, everybody Let’s get into it, get stupid (come on) Get retarded (come on), get retarded (up in here) Let’s get it started Let’s get it started (up in here)”
I did get it started and I did get stupid. I writhed and flailed along like a fish trying to do my own projects without a step-by-step tutorial. That is at least how my experience learning Godot, the game engine, started.
The Godot Experience
I am taken back to years ago when I first started learning how to make art and animation. All the confusion in not knowing how to get the simplest stuff done. Things that should work, but are magically designed to through you off the edge for hours, making you feel like you are losing it.
I finished a simple platformer game following a tutorial, called Hoppy Days. Click here to play it (Windows Only). While the art is creative commons, I came up with the music and the level!
Following this, my past experience learning digital art convinced me the next step for me was not to continue with the next game of the course but instead make my own game! Nothing too undoable, just a simple endless runner.
Oooh boy. Let me tell ya. I had big dreams going into this project, and all of them shattered when I could not even set up the camera as I had envisioned it. I even made artwork ahead of time, thinking it will be a simple project. It took me two days and three forum posts before I changed up 50% of the game so I can make it with what I knew worked. It is still a work in progress, but expect to see it soon! Until then, enjoy this teaser!
Hope you are excited!
Full Circle
As painful as that has been, it really does make me nostalgic about the time I first opened photoshop or blender. Spending hours on the simplest of tasks, not working smart, and having a painful time. One thing is for certain, tough times do not last. Years down the line, I hope I look back at this blog and smirk about the time I got frustrated over a 2D side-scroller game.