Entering The Grind Zone
I’ve reached my 30s, moved to another city, and in two months I’ll have a full year of Unreal experience under my belt. But now begins the slog. Over my time on this earth, I’ve realized that learning something can be likened to heating an object. For those who don’t know, most objects can be heated at a steady pace in the beginning. Slowly rising in temperature as the heat around them increases. But at a certain point, the matter needs to change form: proteins break, alloys melt, water boils. This makes temperature graphs look like this:
I liken this to learning because I think skills plateau at certain points, and I think I’ve hit my first one. The gains are getting smaller as the problems become more complex. Doing something like creating a working tracing channel doesn’t seem impressive or cool because it’s super basic, but you also can’t do anything cool until you master it.
For the past year, people have been like, “Aw look, he’s learning,” and that has been super helpful. But I know it won’t last. Motivation can’t be taken from outsiders alone, and I need to rely on routine if I hope to make it past the first plateau of “knowing enough to know nothing,” which is where I’m currently at.
I basically have the skill equivalent of a CS student who’s taken one game-programming class in their first semester. Not even that much skill, probably less, and I can feel it. I’ve never felt further away from becoming a game dev than I do now that I know everything that goes into making a game. Take art, for example. This key component of every game is something I have legitimately no skill with. But if I published the current Fight For Your Fort build, I’d need to spend hours working on just the UI and menu art. Then I’d need to make all of that feel good, and ideally add touch controls so I could bring it to people’s phones. And this is for a game I’m not even super passionate about, a game that doesn’t have a real selling point until I create a story for it. Even then it will be a time a waster at best.
So where does that leave me? Basically, I’ve just spent a year learning, and the only way to make it not a waste is to power through the next year of plateaued growth. My own inspiration isn’t enough to keep me going anymore, and the double-edged sword of having people look at my work will eventually invite mean comments, so that well of motivation may run dry too.
As such, I’m starting another course: “Unreal Engine 5 — Gameplay Ability System — Top Down RPG.”
The goal is to take what I learn in this course and combine it with everything I’ve done so far with Fight For Your Fort. As I’ve mentioned on my podcast, PissBerg, the point of doing this course is to free up my mind to work on a story that pairs well with the gameplay. Ideally it would be an ARPG where the player character is attacked in waves and has to survive a certain number of “Days” or “Levels.” The player would only have the original cast of characters to fight with. These being monks who have turned the old fort into a monastery and shelter the main character from the evil hordes. If a character dies, they turn into a vengeful spirit that can smash and drop enemies, basically ending the level. The ideal ending would be to keep everyone alive, using the cast’s combat skills to defeat the enemy waves.
If you read that and thought, “Well Tibs, that sounds great, but it feels like you need to create a combat system,” you’d be right. I’m hoping this Top Down RPG + GAS course will give me what I need to build one. But Fight For Your Fort is not a top-down RPG. It’s a defense game with 2D characters that don’t play nicely with the 3D nature of this course. Merging those two ideas will be a challenge. And that’s alongside staying consistent with writing, posting, and keeping up with the real responsibilities of everyday life.
I want to lose a shitload of weight in 2026, which means cutting back on a lot of fun. Not looking forward to that. But if 2025 was the “launch year,” then 2026 is going to be the grind year.
If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading. If you want to hear this instead, you can listen to PissBerg, which is basically a Cum Town refugee podcast where I talk about my more hair-brained thoughts and feelings.
“Tonight, On Top Guy.”
—Tibs
