Most people who know me online met me through development or gaming communities. While this site offers a wealth of content on development, gaming has been notably absent to date. The reason for this is two-fold: I've always wanted to keep this site "professional", and I don't consider myself a gamer in the traditional sense. However, while I don't consider myself a gamer, I'm definitely a modder - and more recently, can be considered a game developer. As such, I'm making an effort to start representing both through my site.
Where to Begin?
I've always said there are two types of modders - those who mod to play, and those who play to mod. I fall into the latter category. While I do occasionally play games for entertainment, most of my library is games that are, in some way, moddable. Games like the Elder Scrolls franchise, the Fallout franchise, 7 Days to Die, and Minecraft, I view more as a development playground than a game. Sure, I'll occasionally spend time in Skyrim, but it's less about playing the game and more about testing or expanding a mod. Don't get me wrong, all of the above-listed games are excellent and well worth playing; I've even played all of them for their entertainment value once or twice. Today, though, I get more out of creating something to improve the game than playing the game itself.
My first mods were written for Minecraft around 2015. They weren't serious mods, and many weren't even publicly released; they were just experiments, seeing what all was possible through a mod. Eventually, I did get around to writing a few serious Minecraft mods, most notably Tipline and WatchDog. I found modding to be a fulfilling experience - I got to create new things that other players could benefit from. I looked for other games to mod, and quickly found that the Fallout franchise supported mods.
In contrast to the Java coding necessary for Minecraft mods, Bethesda games offered a unique benefit; they provided free access to CreationKit, an official tool for manipulating their data files. The visual aspect of CreationKit was a game-changer. Being able to see and manipulate game objects, quests, and dialog made modding infinitely simpler in many ways than what I was accustomed to with Minecraft. While I never actually released a mod for Fallout 4, I did spend the better part of a year working on creating a DLC-sized mod called Horsemen of the Commonwealth, which added new characters, equipment, locations, and even a new worldspace. It wasn't easy, but the result was spectacular. My content was virtually indistinguishable from officially released content, save for the lack of voice acting. My inability to hire voice actors was the one thing that prevented the release of my masterpiece. However, I was hooked.
I started actively looking for mod ideas, most notably for Skyrim, and quickly found a mod request on the Bethesda forums to change the sound used when a conjured pet dies. It was a simple enough request, but it gave me the opportunity to see what had changed in the CreationKit between Fallout 4 and Skyrim. A few hours of experimentation later, and I released my first Skyrim mod: HushPuppy.
My obsession snowballed, and before I knew it, I had written mods for half a dozen games. Over time, it reached the point where friends were recommending games to me not based on the game's merit, but whether it supported modding. Many games found their way into my library that I had no interest in playing, but could write mods for.
The Logical Progression
I suppose it was inevitable; I'm a code monkey who loves writing, eventually I was almost assured to want to move past modding and make my own game. I actually wrote my first game for Android phones in the early 2000s, but it wasn't anything special; it was a simple idle clicker that never received many downloads and was pulled from the app store fairly quickly. So what finally pushed me from making mods to developing a full-scale game from the ground up?
One of my "guilty pleasures" when it comes to gaming is a little game called Phasmophobia. At a glance, it's nothing like anything else in my library. My library is almost exclusively RPGs and survival crafting games. I like a goods storyline, and I like building things. Phasmo is a psychological horror game designed for cooperative play. It doesn't check any of my normal boxes, but every map is a puzzle, and I love puzzles.
One day, I was playing Phasmo with a few friends, and we found ourselves picking apart the game. As fun a game as it is, no game is perfect, and we have a habit of finding all the bugs, whether or not we want to. While discussing bugs and things we would change, one of my friends quipped, "You're a developer, why don't you make a better game?" I knew enough to know game development wasn't anything like app development, and I had no clue how to build a proper game. The idea was intriguing, though, and it stuck with me. I researched game development for a few days, and talked myself into giving it a shot.
Building a Video Game
Now I had direction: recreate the basic gameplay of Phasmophobia, but find my own niche. The first crucial decision was what engine to use. Given I'd be working in 3D, Unity and Unreal were the obvious choices. But I'm an open-source fan, and not having to give a percentage of my potential income to a third party was a good incentive; I picked Godot. My next issue was a bit harder to work through; while I was confident I could teach myself how to functionally make a game, I'm not the most artistic person. I figured that in the worst-case scenario, I could teach myself enough to customize licensed assets. This ended up being a non-issue, though; on April 2nd, 2024, I managed to convince a friend with some minor Blender experience to join me on this crazy ride.
In the roughly two years since, we've come a long way. When we started our little experiment, we had no clue what we were doing. We're still far from done, but a lot of research, experimentation, and trial and error have resulted in the creation of something that could be the foundation of a solid game. Sadly, we still don't have enough to show for an actual teaser today, but we did publish a design document that outlines the direction we're taking the game. So... if we don't even have something to tease, why bother announcing our game? Because we have another announcement to make. But for that one, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.