Nick Gravelyn

Sometimes you just reach a point with a big project where you just need a break. That happened for me tonight. My next big project was just sitting there, opened up in Visual Studio, but I could not bring myself to work on it for much time at all. So rather than sit idly or watch TV, I decided to do what I think lots of people do: start another game.

The other game is pretty simple. It’s a basic, tile-based puzzle game. You slide a player around trying to reach a goal and avoid bombs. Pretty basic stuff. So I figured this was an idea I’ve had for a while and it really shouldn’t take long, let’s get to it.

So tonight I gave it about two hours of time. And in that time I created a fully functional level editor, some placeholder art for the blocks in the level and the player’s character, and implemented the basic gameplay of moving around. Not bad for the first night’s two hours.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to finish up on adding in a win condition so there is some progression and making up some new levels. I’m also going to shoot for adding in a little menu system. Then it’s just a matter of making lots of levels and polishing the art.

While this started as a little side project just to keep my programming wheels turning, it’s looking like it might be pretty fun. If all goes well and I’m happy with it, I just might have another game to submit for Xbox LIVE Community Games.