I Made a Game With No Free Time

Right now I am enrolled in a post-secondary program that is so busy I risk falling behind every time I use the bathroom and I had three weeks to make a game allow me to share the joy and the torment that I’ve been through ludum there is traditionally either a 48 or a

72 hour long game Jam but recently they added this new extra mode which gives Jammers the option to spend three weeks making a game it was intended for busy people like myself but because I’m stubborn I was initially aiming for a 48-hour gem submission all right let’s

See if this is even a possibility for me my idea was a game where you’re a farmer on a floating island planting and harvesting crops in order to buy and upgrade a house for the longest time I’ve had this idea to create a series of games that take place in themed dioramas

A la Captain Toad or Lego builders Journey or Minecraft Skyblock just small projects to scratch my creative and make for easy filler YouTube content to churn out during my free time at University that was before I discovered that in this program free time is smaller and harder to find than a hole

In a bike tire within 20 minutes of setting up the project I had a basic block out of the world and another 10 I had some player movement I continued to work diligently for the rest of the weekend adjusting the layout taking a break to reach my University textbooks

Adding in fonts studying for a test the next day making the basic systems and finishing an assignment I didn’t even realize existed by the end of the weekend I’d realized that my goal of getting the game done in two or even three days wasn’t going to happen I felt

Pretty disappointed at my lack of progress but did recognize that school work had taken up a lot more time than anticipated out of curiosity I decided to tally the time I’d spent working on the game that weekend The Answer 1 hour and 20 minutes I had dedicated all of my free time to

This and that equated to an hour and 20 minutes a realization hit me as I lay in bed Sunday night at this rate even three weeks might not be enough time to finish my game the workload was only going to get heavier as the weeks went on and I

Feared that the free time I had if any would end up being used solely for rest and Recovery that I wouldn’t have time to work on any game that I wouldn’t have time to work on anything I was reminded of my last year of high school how the

Workload proved too much for me to really do anything outside of school and here I was in a university program that assured even less free time a program that in the very first week admitted that it was designed to make us fail just to see what we would do about it an

Hour and 20 minutes the feeling of dread made my blanket feel heavy still I was determined to make this game the next day I found a block of time just after school where I could sneak in some development I got basic harvesting to work and added the ability to zoom in

And out with the camera and that was about it but that was a start later when I’d finished a few more assignments I popped open ditto and continued tacking on little additions I was slowly figuring out what I had to do to make this work every five minute block of

Time I could find was spent working on this game waiting for my alarm to go off waiting for my coffee to Bear waiting for the frying pan to heat up waiting for the lecture to start if I had time to wait I had time to work on this game

Over the next few days I managed to get even more done the wheat was being grown to a Max height and collected the camera was being panned around the island the player was collecting items based on their layer tag and apples were being dropped in such big droves you’d think

They worked for Google by the end of the first week the game already had most of the technical features I’d planned but spending every waking moment working my mind was starting to take a toll on me I was getting up at 7 30 every morning and

Not going to sleep till 1am pride and passion had gotten me through the first week pride in my ability to work on this game despite the massive course load and passion because I was ensuring time to do the things I love the things that make me happy but I was really starting

To miss having free time free time to do those things I gave up when I started University I miss having time to breathe to take an hour to just sit and to think to listen to some music or play a game instead I was looking at all those

Little gaps as places to fill with schoolwork and game development I had to keep the momentum going so far I was doing all right but some days skull really took the life out of me some days I wish that I could just pause for a little bit to stop working and rest but

Part of me felt that if I ever did stop working there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to start again after a week-long brain diet of only University homework and code I decided to spend the next week making art assets a process that I generally find more

Relaxing and meditative I started by modeling the island the shape went from basic UFO to a warble chunk of Earth through a combination of proportional vertex editing sculpting and good old decimation when it came to texturing I took some design inspiration from Mario Kart Wii something I noticed recently is

The different transition textures the game has such as this one going from grass to dirt which inspired me to give the floating island a little skirt of sorts the grass texture itself was inspired by the many grasses of Mario Galaxy I made a basic design in a Sprite

Before moving to photoshop to apply some fun filters and then moved it back to a Sprite to make sure it all tiled I followed a similar process for all textures to try and create a sense of cohesion after texturing the island I moved on to the tree which actually

Stayed pretty close to the Prototype version barring an update to the trunk then I made a swing for the tray and that was kind of fun because I was able to make it pretty low poly without it being obvious just how low Paulie it was I really dig that kind of thing my

Mindset around polygons is constantly shifting between show everyone how low poly this game is and make it as little poly as possible without anyone noticing it does three things I think it provides a technical challenge it provides an artistic Challenge and it reminds me of

Some of the games I grew up with up next was vegetation firstly an apple this guy was fun to make it’s just a sphere that I strategically squashed and stretched until it resembled you guessed it in apple I struggled with the wheat though I wanted to keep the wheat bundles

Especially low poly for performance reasons and one of the ways I thought I might do that would be the perpendicular Billboards technique but at the same time the way wheat worked in my game was already quite similar to another wheat growing game called Minecraft and I didn’t want to make that connection any

More obvious moreover I’d notice that most depictions of wheat growing in other games were rather samey and boring so I decided to do some of my own research into the ways Wheat really grows just in case there was some unique element that I was missing some forgotten fundamental of wheat growing

That other game designers pass over spoiler that really isn’t there a time lapse of wheat growing growing yeah it’s not very interesting oh it’s better than watching it real time I settled on this for my wheat model look even has the Billboards I was now

Two weeks in with only one week to go progress was slow but steady and I figured that with a similar amount of time in the following week and with a lot of effort I could get this project done but I knew there wasn’t going to be

As much time in the next week so I had to make a sacrifice and that sacrifice came in the form of another project I’ve been working on see during these little pockets of time I had actually been working on two projects concurrently this game and a script for a video

Talking about Mario Kart Wii the script was actually so fun to make that I’d made working on it my daily reward for sticking with this project during the first two weeks now with my carrot on the stick gone I had a little more time to finish the game but also a lot less

Motivation of all the Hobbies skills and projects I’ve been working on last year I now only had time for one and after two weeks of not being able to do almost any of the things I love I really wasn’t feeling it I was feeling completely drained I wanted to quit I wanted to

Quit this project I wanted to quit University I wanted to go back to my life from before but I’m not ready to quit University I haven’t given it a fair shot and I couldn’t quit my game I had already managed to do so much so I took a deep

Breath put the pedal to the metal and just hoped that I had enough fuel to make it to the finish line I started making the house and this is one of the toughest things I have ever had to model almost everything I’ve ever modeled has been an organically shaped

Thing characters terrain caves trees bugs I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at all of that but my architectural modeling skills they were a little lacking like with any other model I began by collecting some references organized them based on the features that I wanted to copy and then just

Started messing about different floor layouts wall Heights different orientations roof Styles textures I was slowly discovering what I did and didn’t want for this house mostly what I didn’t I was frustrated by how much time it was taking my vision of this little Farmer’s Cottage had seemed so vivid right up

Until I actually had to make the darn thing I kept trying to mix and match pieces from the reference into my own Creative Design but it always came out looking like crap I really wanted some balance of modest quaint cozy but also a little bit fancy since this was a

Gradual upgrading sort of game I actually managed to find my balance by combining one of the houses from Animal Crossing with this wooden cabin from Red Dead Redemption 2. an otherwise generic design with some rustic wooden beans framing it I like it reminds me of my

Own house in some and oh look at that it took me five days to make I was now in the last 48 hours of the jam but luckily I’d found myself a few extra hours to spend on the game that’s code for I was ignoring homework by the way so I

Finished up the house added all the window dressings and then moved on to sound effects and music almost all of these came from open game art or free sound with some tweaking and audacity to pick out emphasize and sometimes layer the parts that I wanted the background

Song I used was up in the sky by memrophile I had imagined something a little more on the ambient side originally but I really liked the combination of the dreamy synth com keyboard and trippy chipped in that the song had to retain the ambience I’d originally envisioned I added wind

Sounds in the background that get louder the farther back the camera goes here’s a fun fact I spent 20 minutes looking for good footstep sounds and then forgot to actually use them in the game so I have a truly silent protagonist speaking of which right after this I decided that

Our player needed a visual overhaul so I threw together some farmer references and got to work the plaid shirt was probably the hardest part of making the player and it definitely does not stand up a script I had to create a plaid texture and it turns out there are many

More subtleties to that than I would have thought just lines and boxes right yeah but there’s also special color combinations and stripe patterns and drawing all this directly onto the model hell no I use the power of a Sprite in Photoshop to help me design a repeating pattern and then use blender stencil

Tool to help draw it onto the player’s clothes I managed to make it look all right in the end but this was a hack job just before going to bed on the penultimate day I made the decision to finally import all of my assets into the game I attached the models to their

Corresponding objects created a proper background scene tweak some of the imported materials and finally got the modular pieces in the game working I can even quickly and easily toggle between the different stages of the house using this code right here for any competent programmers watching I am sorry you had

To see that the sun rose on the final day and I had just three hours to submit my game but you know what for once in this whole month I wasn’t feeling pressed for time I was just looking forward to finishing the project I added in some basic UI for exchanging farm

Supplies and money then added a button for upgrading the house and a basic windscreen and then I was done I uploaded the game with two hours remaining I spent the next half hour slowly beautifying the itch page and making thumbnails for the ludum Dare submission then I took a break a break

From the game Jam from school from everything I gave myself a long overdue breather it was only for about an hour but it still gave me an opportunity to reflect on everything when I started University I knew I was going to have to sacrifice a lot of things that I loved

For a while but I didn’t realize how great that sacrifice would be I had a lot of things I wanted to do in January and February and this year for that matter and it’s soul-crushing to realize that most of that stuff isn’t going to happen the course load is hitting me

Like a bar hits a bench presser with no spotter I’m one to preach good time management I’ve always believed that anyone can learn new skills if they dedicate themselves to it and not having enough time was always code for I don’t feel like giving up any of my habits or

Hobbies for this and while that’s still probably true in many cases I’m definitely realizing firsthand that yes there is such a thing as not enough time the program I’m doing is very exciting and busy and there’s lots to learn and do which is great but making games playing games writing scripts editing

Drawing modeling composing that’s what brings me joy and those pieces are sorely lacking in my life right now and I don’t know what’s going to happen without them I’m waiting to see Will I burn out just go numb find some other great purpose in life I don’t know out

Of curiosity I decided to add up the total amount of time I’d spent making this game the answer was 25 hours that’s more time than I’ve put into a lot of other projects and yet somehow I managed to pull it off during the busiest month

Of my life and I didn’t really know how to feel about that Discovery it wasn’t Pride or Joy or some other positive emotion it wasn’t even really a thought in my head it was some unique mixture of feelings that I don’t have the words for

So instead of trying to figure it out I ended my break went back to the dorm sat down and played the game it turned out exactly as I hoped it would yes the gameplay is simple and a little clunky yes the UI is unpolished and the game has some weird bugs but the

Game is everything I’d imagined short simple atmospheric and peaceful just a little farmer and their little farm on a little island in a little world killing crops and enjoying life last year was my Gap year between high school and University there was nothing I had to do

So everything I did was what I really wanted to do and though I absolutely was working hard I was also in control I was alone in my little world doing what I wanted when I played this game I’m reminded of that feeling the feeling of having control of my little world I miss

That feeling I felt that way once as a little kid I felt that way last year and I hope to feel that way again someday I don’t know if other people who play this game will feel the same way I do but that’s all right first and foremost I

Made this game for me I’ve got a few years of University left and it’s only going to get harder from here the hope is that by investing that time into University it’ll benefit me in the long run but that doesn’t mean I’m going to

Let it stop me from doing what I love in the interim I’m going to keep making games I’m going to keep making videos I’m going to keep creating art if for no one else than for me because that’s what I need this experience as tough and as

Tiring as it was has helped me prove to myself that it’s possible a pain in the ass absolutely but possible the game is available to download on itch ciao for now