I always see developers talking about Green Squares, so I got curious and moved most of my repos to Github to have a look. I only moved personal game projects, so there is no client work, only games, and no art-art.
What I found was a story.
It helped me remember what I did with my life during those years and allowed me to embark on a journey of self-reflection. The same way you can look through your photos for memories, my green squares have a similar time capsule effect. I can remember my life through the projects I was working on during those times.
In other words, it seems I’m able to piece together the story of my life through photos, my work calendar, and GREEN SQUARES.
I can see and remember when I was the most inspired, when I encountered burnout, when I worked on art or design or marketing, and my process of learning.
2014-2016
From 2014 to mid 2016, I stored most things everything in Dropbox. One day, I was complaining about how Dropbox handles all my files and someone suggested I move to Git. So I set up with Bitbucket, because it provided private repos for solo projects. But I think it took until about 2018 to really start committing each individual change instead of “oh yeah I need to commit” after several hours to several days of work. So I’d say it wasn’t until about 2018 that Git “clicked” and then a golden age of green squares could commence.
In late 2016 I was nearing the completion of my first major game, Cereus for Android and iPhone.
It looks like I stopped for a break in October to make a small game called Negative.
Not present in the squares, but I also know that sometime during this time period I made the game Reach, which was a Reddit topper for a weekend on free web games. Plus a completely failed attempt to make a game called “SkeleChest”.
In 2014 or maybe even before, I made a bunch of small “games”: Circle Game (in XNA), My Pal Sal, Killing Time, Skeleboarder, Lil Wizes Big Forces, WRONG, and an early prototype called “Face Poker” that eventually became Cereus.
2017
November 21st, 2017, I launched Cereus to Google Play and the App Store. The year started with bug fixes and mobile optimization.
According to the task items on my calendar, I was juggling 5-6 clients while also working on the marketing for the release of Cereus.
Releasing a game has a lot of activities that put a huge dent in green squares:
- Setting up on Google Play
- Jumping through the endless hoops on the App Store
- Press Kits, Press Releases
- Marketing Assets like Posters and Trailers
- Social media presence
Other than that:
- I experimented with making an Octopath Traveler style, trying to find a new visual language to make games in.
- I made a small puzzle game called Skylands.
- I made a small game called Deckest Dungeon – which somehow is my most played game on Itch.io
2018
2018 was a year of discovery! I was deciding what to do with myself after 3 years of development on Cereus post release.
I was invited to showed Cereus at Casual Connect in DisneyLand, so I made more edits for that. I also attempted to make the game ad supported after ~95% of plays in the analytics seemed to be pirated, so there’s some commits for that.
In 2018 I made 2 small games and 3 prototypes.
Games
- I sold a non-exclusive license to Deckest Dungeon so learned the process of working on two versions of the same game across separate branches.
- I made a game called Someone is Wrong On The Internet which is a simple speed-antonym game under the narrative of arguing with people on the internet.
- I made a game called ProtoDash – a practice in one-button controls game design.
Prototypes
- I also explored prototyping a game called Skylands 2 – meant to be my “quick project” before moving on to a next “big project”. I learned I wasn’t interested in making a puzzle game at that time.
- I explored shaders on the Octopath Traveler visual experiment.
- And then, I found the next game I wanted to work on – The Abandoned. A prototype mixing aim games with jRPGs in the style of Shin Megami Tensei which took me through to the next year.
Gap:
In June I moved to Brazil for 6 months, so that accounts for the gap between May and July – I must have been overwhelmed with the transition. Also – checking my calendar around that time, it looks like I was inundated with multiple client projects and then some vacation time.
2019
The year started with The Abandoned, plus some work that didn’t end up in any commits that I called “Shader February” or “Shay Debruary” where I learned and posted a new shader to Twitter every day.
The Abandoned culminated in a build I presented at Dreamhack May 31 to June 2.
Gap:
After presenting The Abandoned at Dreamhack, for WHATEVER REASON, I felt like no one cared about the game so I felt lost trying to figure out what to do with it. According to my work calendar I was exploring a few business ideas like software and starting a graphic design agency. It also looks like I was doing some client work in Unity.
And then…
Kickochet happened. In August I gathered a team together to do the GMTK jam. We were listed #1 in the announcement video which advised us to turn it into a full game. This was the invitation I was waiting for. Drunk on public validation in a video which now has 2 million views I gathered the team and said LETS SELL THIS!
What followed was the rest of my year completely consumed by this project that “just needs a couple of things and then we can release it!”
2020
COVID year! As the pandemic took hold of our imaginations with its existential horror, and the Kickochet scope seemed to be growing out of control with no end in sight, the team slowly dissolved as covid seemed to take up more headspace.
I returned to software and designed an interface for a product with a former IBM Senior Security Engineer. Oops, when I worked on the HTML/CSS for the site those non-game squares worked their way in here. We released the product and I got back to thinking about games.
In October and November I made a game called Meta Form, a surrealist adventure about how we deal with existential horror, and then spent a month polishing and making the music, then put it on sale it and worked on the marketing.
2021 – 2022
In that Jan – Mar 2023 period, I was working on making a roguelike version of Cereus for PC.
But all that stopped in March when I started working on Twilight Tower for a two week game jam. Twilight Tower is a game about making tough survival decisions in an otherwordly tower. I loved working on it so much that I kept working on it after the jam. Things really took off when publishers started asking if I was interested in making it into a full game.
From March 2021 to May 2022 I worked nonstop on Twilight Tower, which became a prototype called “Twilight Tactics“. It culminated in a build for a tiny convention called Tiny Con. Any gaps on in the squares was time spent paper prototyping or designing. After which I took a vacation in June and returned home with covid.
I can see now why after over a year of grinding on one game and being forced to stop by Covid, I dropped everything and left the country during a period of burnout.
Before leaving, I put aside a month to work with a team on a Vampire Survivors-like called 10 Minutes to Y2K for a game jam.
Basically took the rest of the year to move in to Rio de Janeiro while planning and experimenting with a new prototype with another programmer…
2023
Fortunately, after that, I started learning how to act more like an official game designer with documentation while working with another programmer instead of keeping it all in my head and also programming everything.
Feb to July 2023 we were creating pitch materials and videos to seek publishers on our new prototype for Twilight Tower 2 – a deckbuilder that seamlessly blends narrative and combat. We got all that ready in time for the BIG Festival in São Paulo where the original version of Twilight Tower was a finalist for best narrative. After the convention, we started on the official game through to November and went back to pitching.
Oh, and I made a game called ITS NOT YOUR FAULT to express interactive design from a more artistic standpoint than a game designy mechanics way.
2024
My projects since late 2023 have been on private client repos, so not many green squares to show there.
Should’ves
I feel like I should probably write a follow up to all of this with some sort of “What did I learn?” While I certainly finished a fair share of projects, they were only the tiny ones. What should I have done to finish the big ones? It’s a simple answer, really.
I should’ve lowered the scope of every single one of my unfinished projects at the START.
I should’ve focused more on proving prototypes than trying to create a finished product from the start. Once I evaluated the prototype, I should’ve created a scope for how to finish the game or moved on from what didn’t work instead of pushing in all directions at the same time and endlessly iterating on designs that weren’t working.
I should’ve thought more in terms of saving ideas for sequels than increasing scope and trying to expand and perfect what I was working on.
Thank you Green Squares, for this birds eye view perspective and reminder.
