fatpossum

fatpossum

Sharing my story: made games without knowing what I’m doing

Hey everyone, I’m 36 and just wanted to introduce myself. Years ago, I dabbled a bit with batch code and GB Studio. Around 2023, thanks to ChatGPT, I started playing around with Python for fun - first with Pygame. Eventually, I got hooked on a project and decided to use Kivy, since it seemed simple enough for my idea (even though I honestly barely understand what I’m doing).

I’ve realized it’s probably better to learn programming properly from the ground up rather than just copy-pasting stuff. I even have a great Python book, but I’m just not reading enough. My code structure is a total mess.

At first, I wanted to release my project on Android - figured the Play Store only costs $20 once, so why not? To test things on my phone, I started a simpler side project, but that quickly became too much because a) I lack real knowledge, and b) I get lost in useless details. I also learned that mobile games aren’t as easy as they seem, so I decided to shift the main project to PC.

Still, I kept working on the mobile game, but that wasn’t possible without outside help. I noticed that things running fine on PC can look completely different on mobile - and what works on one phone might break on another, depending on the code. Total chaos! Meanwhile, yet another side project popped up.

After investing quite a bit in a Kivy expert from India (who also struggled with my messy code), the next big hurdle was publishing to the Play Store. That alone turned out to be a whole different beast. Honestly, if I had known all this beforehand, I might not have started.

Anyway, both apps are now on the Play Store, though no one really cares about them - which is fair. They’re simple and cost a dollar/euro in richer countries. I just wanted to try my luck and maybe earn a little through ad-free games (I’d love to quit my social job one day - but that’s another story :D).

Still, I’m proud to have made it this far - with a lot of help. Now it’s time to focus on the main project, though the planned release for August 8, 2025 (World Cat Day) probably won’t happen. I’m going through a tough time personally and don’t have the energy to finish it right now. Maybe I should’ve started with something less complex - this game is packed with complicated formulas.

If you want, feel free to check it out. By the way, I used AI-generated graphics in both games. I know some people criticize that - there’s definitely room for improvement - but I enjoy using it for my projects. I’m also happy to send out free Android codes if anyone’s interested. And if you have ideas for beginner-friendly coding projects for someone with limited brain bandwidth, I’m all ears :slight_smile: Feedback and honest opinions are more than welcome!

Here are my games (well, one of them is more of a button meme app):

:left_arrow_curving_right: Purrfect Galaxies (Steam)
:left_arrow_curving_right: Meowglider (Android)
:left_arrow_curving_right: Mobile Doomer Simulator (Android)

First Post!

AstonJ

AstonJ

Nice one, congrats!

You may want to look at creating iPhone or Mac apps too - I built one quite a way back with MacRuby (now rubymotion) and I set it to the lowest cost (99p at the time) and iirc it was earning about £40/£50 a month and it was a very simple app: Have you made or worked on a macOS app? - #2 by AstonJ

Where Next?

Popular Game Dev topics Top

New
AstonJ
Probably more of a mid-sized team than small indie, but has gone viral after gameplay footage was released (which they did to attract mor...
New
AstonJ
Anything stand out for anyone? A few live-streams out there:
New
New
Paz
Hi there! I’m hosting a jam with my team and would like to invite you to participate :slight_smile: It’s about building just one level o...
New
RomanStarCoder
(Note: I said this on multiple other forums, but nobody either actually said anything, or the mods don’t approve me. I’m just wondering f...
New
axenteflorin24
1691 Maze Escaper, in this video game the character played by the great and unique Rimescu Şmenărescu. Who is this Rimescu Şmenărescu rea...
New
fatpossum
Hey everyone, I’m 36 and just wanted to introduce myself. Years ago, I dabbled a bit with batch code and GB Studio. Around 2023, thanks t...
New
lingo1357
Hello, I have a problem that you probably have too. I don’t have a problem with coding, but my problem is that as the game progresses, I...
New
DeriLULZZ
Hi to everyone! i recently (not quite) started creating one game with an cool idea, for me at least. The idea is this: Frogger but in ...
New

Other popular topics Top

siddhant3030
I’m thinking of buying a monitor that I can rotate to use as a vertical monitor? Also, I want to know if someone is using it for program...
New
AstonJ
We have a thread about the keyboards we have, but what about nice keyboards we come across that we want? If you have seen any that look n...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Tailwind CSS is an exciting new CSS framework that allows you to design your site by composing simple utility classes to create complex e...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Create efficient, elegant software tests in pytest, Python's most powerful testing framework. Brian Okken @brianokken Edited by Kat...
New
mafinar
This is going to be a long an frequently posted thread. While talking to a friend of mine who has taken data structure and algorithm cou...
New
AstonJ
If you get Can't find emacs in your PATH when trying to install Doom Emacs on your Mac you… just… need to install Emacs first! :lol: bre...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build efficient applications that exploit the unique benefits of a pure functional language, learning from an engineer who uses Haskell t...
New
New
AstonJ
This is cool! DEEPSEEK-V3 ON M4 MAC: BLAZING FAST INFERENCE ON APPLE SILICON We just witnessed something incredible: the largest open-s...
New
NewsBot
Node.js v22.14.0 has been released. Link: Release 2025-02-11, Version 22.14.0 'Jod' (LTS), @aduh95 · nodejs/node · GitHub
New