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The Looming Development Cycle - It's Back, Baby.

  • narcodis
  • 08/09/2017 12:41 AM
  • 1384 views
The Looming Spire is back in development. It has been for about the past month or so. Before this, the last time I worked on this project in earnest was some time in 2014. Before that, it was easily 2012. There have been very long gaps in the development of this game, but within those multi-year gaps, this project has never strayed too far from my mind. I always hearken back to the design and the layout of the Spire and the many plans I had.

A lot of time has passed since I started work on this thing. It originally started out as just a technical demo way back in 2010, just a simple custom battle system. Very stripped down, very simplistic. The demo was released as part of a "release something!" event here on RMN, and it got a pretty nice response. I mean, not much, as it really wasn't much of anything at the time.

I kept tinkering with things. The systems grew, the maps grew, and soon a story started developing around this whole idea. Soon more and more was being added on to this small little technical demonstration. I began to visualize it, and really feel it come to life as I built more and more. I remember how satisfying it all felt when each piece was finished, but also how frustrating it could get.

Before long, the fatigue set in. The scope of things seemed too great. I could not feasibly realize my vision without putting in more work than I could muster. At some point I kinda accepted it would never be finished, and figured maybe one day I'd return to game-making in some other form or endeavor. Perhaps I wasn't at the right place in my life to handle things.

But here I am now. I've grown up quite a bit. I got my college degree, and am a professional programmer now. I still aspire to make games, but this project... this project still haunts me. I feel like I need to get it done, for me.


I've gone and removed all the old screenshots from RMN and taken several new ones to take their place. I will probably update those as well, eventually. I will be posting more blogs with game details and other stuff, too.

Cheers

Posts

Pages: 1
I'm happy to read this and looking forward to the next updates on development :D
Game dev is exhausting. Keep at it though! It is so satisfying to finish something
author=kentona
Game dev is exhausting. Keep at it though! It is so satisfying to finish something


Hey man, your work ethic was something of an inspiration to me, so thanks!
Pages: 1