Lately I have felt a strong urge to create again. Instead of going for what I've been doing in the past decade and a half or so, writing and filmmaking, I was drawn to game making.
I tried my hand on this for a while, a decade or two ago. I remember buying a book or two about game design, as well as borrowing two books on programming languages ( Turbo Pascal and Q Basic or Visual Basic ). I really tried, but in the end, it was too hard for me. I didn't make it past very basic stuff; not much more than text and the most basic type of animation. It all felt too mathematical to me and I wasn't much of a mathematician. I might be good at learning languages, but I didn't speak these computer languages.
Flash Forward to the Now
Times have changed. I'm still not much of a mathematician ( although I like to play a game of Chess, every now and then ) but, thanks to the Internet and the many kind people on there - things that were only possible for a select few or for those who paid for it, are now available for anyone. Any person with time on his hands, that is.
A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to my younger brother, who is a game maker. I asked for an easy way to start with making games. He then sent me the following link: https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy and added that it was a good way to make cool, small games. A way to make something in an hour.
He might have exaggerated ( or overestimated me ) time wise but I already agree with the former. It seems to be a cool program to make small, fun games.
Clicking on the above link, brings you to a ( free to use ) basic game making program. There's loads of other games on there, as well as tutorials to help you get started. It's not for the impatient amongst us, though.Game making takes time and time is a valuable asset. So it's up to you whether you find it worth your time to get started on there. I myself have decided that game making is one of the few things that I want to spend time on, from now on. Let's see if I can stick to it and where it leads to. Only time can tell...
Creating with a Purpose
I have been looking for some kind of mix between creating for myself as well as creating for others. Due to having been part of the awesome natural medicine and mindful life community on Steemit and especially Discord, the mindfulness theme soon bubbled up to the surface of my highly active brain. Then the name 'Mindfulness Mansion' popped up.
Here's a screenshot of the gamemaking program I am referring to and the start of my game.
And here's what I wrote down, yesterday, about this game:
Mindfulness Mansion
Different rooms ( of a house )
Possibly situations/ locations
that you ( the player ) try to approach in as mindful a way as possible. Make the ordinary extra-ordinary.
Talk about destressing
intro with text
All work and no play makes me a dull person
Buddhist / meditator pixel/ art
sounds: crickets birds water(fall)
Field, sea, waterfall forest.
I could go on and on but this was meant to be a short post. I plan to share ( parf of ) the gamemaking process with you but won't make any promises about the how and how often.
Thanks to @j3dy who made me aware of the following site CalmyLeon - as pictured on the screenshot below - that is now playing its sounds in my ears, while I am working on this write up. It blends in perfectly with the theme of my game and the attitude towards life that I aim to maintain as much as possible.
P.S. Talking about being mindful, I went out to buy a sketch book and some drawing pens but I ended up buying three canvases, acrylic paint, paint brushes and a sketch book. I remember having some coloring pens in my hand but apparently I didn't buy them.
My idea was to do some sketching for my mindfulness game and share some of it with you on here. That needs to wait now. Unless I do the sketching with an ordinary, blue pen. Let's see about that.
For now, some screen shots of my first game in a decade and a half, as well as me talking about the process will need to make do ;>)
TO BE CONTINUED...
I love to hang out in the Mindful Life / Natural Medicine community and Discord chat. If that place sounds appealing to you, I kindly invite you to the server: Natural Medicine / Mindful Life on Discord Feel Welcome! :>)