Another Pong

Learning game dev from the ground up... once again. I have tried to learn game dev before through tutorials and other bits and pieces but unfortunately scoped too high, was too overwhelmed and eventually quit. Now I'm looking to try again but with a plan this time.

I am starting with a similar approach to the 20 games challenge I read online, only I will be trimming it down to 10 games. The challenge is to clone classic games in increasing complexity with a focus of building every component of the game myself. Eventually building and releasing 10 whole games by the end of it. Doing this whole process through multiple projects will help me to build confidence and experience the entire development process again and again. With the hopeful end point to grow my skillset enough to be confident in creating my own games.

The first on my 10 games challenge list is as you can see, Pong! A game so incredibly small in scope but it does wonders to appease the voices of the internet. As they say, your first game must be small in scope and so I took their advice to heart. A simple game in all respects and the perfect starting point to dip my feet in every part of the development process.

I started with, as the voices of the internet said, a Game Design Document.  A growing document stating everything about the game in plain text. But I'm not one for lengthy documents, so I opted for a detailed to do list instead. I started by listing all the things I will need to do to complete this game. I need to make pixel art boxes for the pong, then make a pong, make it move, then the ball, make the ball bounce off walls et cetera. With this outline in hand, it's time to begin my project.

As I make my way through my todo list. I discover that mine too is a growing document, a seemingly endless todo list where more checkboxes appear than I can tick off. So many things I haven't considered before that I have to look up and learn. But as this list grows, it makes me think about things in detail I never considered at the beginning. How do I actually make a ball bounce? How do I make an AI? Often times I have to come up with my own solution, with some help from the voices of the internet. Eventually I start recording how I solve the recurring issues in a separate coding FAQ document. This too is a growing document however I am better prepared to handle one of these. This isn't my first growing document after all. Eventually I end up with a nice history of all the tasks I had done and it comes with a large glossary of all my answered questions and bug fixes accumulated throughout this journey.

And what can I say, this has been a monumental learning process. Going through every step of the way has given me insight into the many parts that make up a game. From figuring out how to handle collisions to coding an AI. The euphoria I felt when I finally made an AI to play against cannot be described. Seeing everything slowly come together with my own hands is an incredible feeling. With each step showing visible improvements and tangible progress towards the final goal. Eventually, the end is in sight, the checkboxes are running out and the game is coming together.

Finally, it is done. Here I present to you the first game of many, Another Pong!

Yes, it isn't original, there are bugs and is far from a polished experience but it is a starting point.. This is the beginning of many such games to learn from and I post this here to mark the start of my journey.

Stats:
The One Goal: Releasing a product I am happy with
Days taken to plan: 1
Days taken to complete project: 5
Hours in Godot: 5hrs 13mins