This project started when I was commuting several hours to and from work everyday and felt an urge to spend my time on the train on something more productive than listening to yet another podcast. I've always wanted to make games on my own, but have never grasped the programming side of things, so I've focused on graphics, animations, music and other aspects of game development. There's something about the way code is written that doesn't make sense for my visual way of thinking. However, when I saw the visual coding language of GameMaker Studio, I suddenly felt "Hey... I kind of get that!".

That revelation made me curious in a way I hadn't been before. Maybe it was worth giving GameMaker a shot? I started by watching a bunch of tutorials until I felt that I understood the basics of how things worked (Thanks, Slyddar!). After that, I got GameMaker and started using my 45 minute ride to and from work to fiddle around with the program.

Usually, that amount of time was enough to try a concept, fail in some way, read the manual, think about solutions and finally solving the problem before the commute was over. It was a very exciting way to learn and I felt that I always had new small things to try out. Eventually, I felt that I might be able to put my random small experiments together and form an actual game.

I decided to focus mainly on the programming and avoid making the graphics look nice. If I could make the game work - and also be fun to play - the polishing of graphics could come later. After having spent a lot of these small sessions of coding on the train, I feel like the project has now found some kind of identity and that I would like to take it from something I just keep on my hard drive for myself, to something that can be played by other people. The game is not ready to be uploaded yet, but I aim to work towards that goal and I will keep updating this devlog with my progress along the way.

Since I work on it in my spare time and I have no experience with doing ALL aspects of development on my own, I don't know how long it will take. It might take a year, maybe longer. In any case, I intend to work towards the goal of a small, but complete game and try to enjoy the process in the same way I've done so far.

I will be updating this devlog every month, so if you'd like to follow the progress, you can come back here every month and see what's happened since last time. Thank you for reading!

/ Robert

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Here's what I did in January 2024:

• Set up a Git repository.
• Remade the level name system to be adaptive.
• Made a rough sketch for how the new main menu could look.
• Pixel art sketch of the recycle machine.
• Gathered inspiration from the sprites and palettes of an old project.
• Layout for splash screen.
• Came up with name for the game and made a pixel art logo.
• itch.io website: Decided the style of the page.
• itch.io website: Wrote first drafts of texts.
• itch.io website: Made pixel art illustrations.
• Wrote first full draft of the backstory.
• Set up the game flow from main menu to end game and back again.
• Published the page on itch.io.
• Wrote the first devlog.