Next Steps
I'm going to take another course after I finish this defend your castle game. Or at least get the barebones of the game created. I still do not really know about unreal or coding to make anything truly ground breaking, or even all that good. But I am getting better at it. Learning simple things like simulate physics causing movement logic to not function is huge. Using the game mode instead of level actors is massive as well. I've learned tons about using geometry collections and probably most importantly, the limits of using said collections. But I'm still only scratching the surface of things. Like I just learned how to cut and alter static meshes using the modeling tool, which probably needs a full course load to master.
So what to focus on next? Well there are two possible things. The most beneficial, and probably what I'll do, is take another of Stephens Unreal Engine courses that focus around building a complete game that uses the GAS or Game Ability System. I personally think mastery of this system will allow me to create my ideas faster and more efficiently, but also learn things that real world teams use and interact with on a regular basis. I often find myself doing things “my way” like dropping an invisible ball on the door to get it to smash, but that just isn't the right way. Or even if it is, it's probably not the most efficient and bringing those “skills” to a team would be effectively useless. To get a job I need to master some part of the engine, and maybe GAS can be it.
But that being said I don't really just want to spend all my time working on a course to make something I can really even show to people. I talk about this on Pissberg but it's humiliating to be 30 years old and still “figuring it out” without anything concrete. I'm a writer who's never been published, a game dev who's never made a game, an artist who's never been acclaimed. Not that being perceived is the most important thing in life but it would be nice to say “yeah I've spent hundreds of hours on this, and here is what I have to show for it.” A course gets me further away from actually making something and that fucks me up. My hope was that there was a slightly more indepth course that covers the PaperZD/2D plug in, and focuses on how to make better 2.5D interactions. But the only course I can find on the plug in seems scammy and retreads what I already know.
Sure not having a completed project is tough, but the thought of wasting more time just to learn the basics again is unpalatable for me. But as I sit and write this, I realize the Druid Mechanics Ultimate GAS course is going to be the one for me. Its top down gameplay is something that looks pretty compatible with my earlier paperZD work, and I think it will do my best to get back into a course that is comprehensive. Because I do want to create that game, and I think if I can slap on a few more interactive systems, say an overworld, character dialogue, upgrades and castle defences, I might be able to really release something that people enjoy.
To anyone that enjoys reading these, I’ve stopped writing them regularly because most of the time I just use them as an excuse to get my feelings out or ramble about the current state of the video game industry. So to do that, I’ve created the Pissberg Podcast. It’s basically my answer to the cum town sized hole left in my life, but I go over my plans for my game/life/whatever in the cast. It’s only on my website for now, because I don’t really want people who don’t fuck with my to listen to it. But again, if you’ve gotten this far, welcome to Pissberg.
