The hardest part for me is integrating the different elements of the game.
I’ve got the models and armatures, fully textured, rigged and animated.
I’ve got a movement system.
I’ve got an navigation and AI system.
I’ve got an inventory system.
I’ve got a level creation system.
I’ve got tilesets, modeled, textured and organized for placement.
I’ve got a UI and menu system.
I’ve got a combat and particle system, (though it needs to be partially rewritten for the project in question).
But when I try to put them together, that’s when I get to the point where I can’t visualize the whole code in my head all at once. It’s possible with the various elements to know and understand them completely on their own, but when they start meshing together you have to understand how they fit, why they sometimes don’t fit, how to make them fit and when, finally, they just aren’t going to fit and you need to go back and rework one of them. Because of the time that has elapsed since I last worked on any one part of the project, there are things I’ve forgotten, things I now know how to do better, big mistakes I made but didn’t see at the time… it all adds up to make the project a bit too complex to get my head around.
I know I could make compromises, make parts of the project much simpler (for example making it real time instead of turn based), but then I wouldn’t be making the game I want to make. I just can’t muster up the motivation to make a game that I’m not interested in playing myself, and so I prevaricate. Hoping that if I polish up one of the individual systems enough, make it shiny and streamlined enough, it’ll fit together much better.
There have been times in the past, before I was married, before I was a father, when I could sit down for a week and push through such a blockage and make something that worked fully. But these days the most time I get in one sitting is about two hours, and that’s just not enough time to really devour the individual elements, digest them and regurgitate a working game.
Anyway, I’m off to put some more polish on a couple of systems, I’m pretty sure this time I’ve got them just right…