On the joy of little games
Small is good
#gamedevelopment
Sometimes from small acorns, spaceships grow.
With my tutoring I ask my students to iterate quickly — to make a little game, and focus on getting the gameplay loop working. To get to the game as quickly as possible, and not start getting distracted with too much architecture, or scope creep, or anything that doesn't get to the game. Usually that means getting something within the first four hours, tops. DragonRuby really helps with this.
To help with this goal, I often have them start with a classic game format — the limited scope means we don't end up with a lot of design paralysis or ballooning scope. Things like Frogger. Or Asteroids.
Recently, in doing an Asteroids clone with a student, I got the bug for it. I was trying to add just a little something that would encourage the player to move, to get away from just sitting in one spot rotating. My little solution was gravity wells — something that pulls the player and the asteroids around in somewhat of a chaotic way. It's not a terribly novel idea, but once I got the basic functionality, I started having fun with it. I especially enjoy the glitch when things are under a lot of gravity.
Anyways, I've been making it. It's on itch.io now, and soon will be on iOS and Mac stores.
