Instead of learning skills individually, learn them as you go! Just pick an engine - I’d recommend Godot - and get to work.

Here’s a nice challange about building increasingly difficult games: The 20 games challange.

You start with Pong, which is super easy to get the hang of. You could even follow a tutorial for that one and then try to use less and less tutorials as you go down the list.

Just get going instead of watching endless how-to videos, which is an easy trap for beginners. Actually starting a project and finishing one are two of the most important skills. You’ll quickly learn which parts come naturally to you and which ones you need to focus on.

As for creativity, once you’re done with each game, try to think of a twist to spice it up and add it to the game. It can be a simple thing, like e.g. with Pong using multiple balls or maybe adding obstacles - just test what’s fun and what’s not!

Still working through Shin Megami V Vengeance!

Finished the second main area, out of 4, I presume. By now the story has established the new group of antagonists and gave more screen time to the previously underused cast. There are enough new demons that I can barely keep up with fusing them all! But I always feel to need to collected them all in SMT/Persona. (Funnily enough, I never did in Pkmn.)

Finished the first route of AI: The somnium files!

Got Ota’s ending, which didn’t actually solve the case. Luckily, the game tells you about each branching path and you can freely jump to them.

The humor is hit or miss, but it did land with me and my partner. The mystery is fun and the characters are all around fun, too. We’ll do the other routes and then jump right into the sequel!

Thanks for asking, but there isn’t yet. I’ve dabbled around quite a bit and wan’t to focus on actually finishing something this year. Maybe for the next one.

Over the last two years, I’ve often lost my drive to continue since there are always new shiny ideas that are far more interesting than doing a lot of the menial work game dev involves. Kinda the opposite of your problem, really.

Didn’t game too much this holiday season and I want to focus more on making games instead of playing them this year - let’s see how that one is working out.

Anyhow, got in a good chunk of SMT V Vengeance! The QoL stuff is awesome, but it’s still pretty similar to the original - just with more quests and demons along the way . I don’t mind since I loved the original game, but if you didn’t it likely not worth it.

Started Ai: The Somnium Files! Decided to play through some detective games with my partner. This one is a great start! I like the characters, it’s both fun and has a good mystery. I’ll probably go through the entire series + rain code, then do the Ace Attorney games. Are there other games like this?

It’s in a similar vein. There are new demons, quests, QoL stuff and some rebalancing changes just like in P5R. However, instead of a new chapter, Vengence added a new route through the game - revamping most of the story. (Or fixing the lack thereof.)

Currently, it’s still quite similar to vanilla SMT V, but I’ve been told it will diverge a lot more quite early. Don’t know if or how many new locations there are.

Probably Alaska then, but I have no clue which episode. These types of episodes are all jumbled together in my mind.

I think it’s the one future episode with Lisa as the POTUS, ‘the president wore pearls’.

The joke was Maggie writing a card from Antarctica, which now is a beach paradise due to global warming. If memory seerves right, there are even some penguins sonewhere in there.

Finished up Harvestella.

Overall, I really like the game. The farming and combat are both somewhat simple and the story does start out generic. However, then it speedruns a complete JRPG story within a single chapter and then throws another 5 chapters at you. The characters are fun, the world is interesting and I felt engaged throughout. Even did some more farming after I already bought everything until I hit the money cap at 999,999.

Finished Pokemon Legends Arceus!

My initial impression stands. The first area was some of thr best Pokemon I ever played. Afterwards the entire thing kind of fell apart. Too many repeated Pokemon per area; most things didn’t even reach half my level and fhe story never hooked me. The final fight against the hidden antagonist, I guess, was somewhat challanging, but I don’t think the battle system is all that fun. Sometimes, you defeat a Pokemon and the next one just gets 4 turns in before you move again (even using my fast moves!). But still, I really enjoyed that initial catching of Pokemon and think it’s woth trying.

Just yesterday, I started Shin Megami Tensei V Vengence.

I love the original SMT V, it’s one of my favorite Switch games. Having played some more SMT games since then, it does show some cracks, but I’m still having a great time and enjoy the new stuff. It’s probably best coming of Persona and I still prefer it over SMT 3 Nocturne, which I think is somewhat uncommon. (Although that’s mostly due to Nocturnes save system. On the highest difficulty, not being able to save for sometimes hours at a time really does suck when you could die from a single random encouter at any time. At full health. Without getting a turn in.)

This may not necessarily apply to you, but those 30 minutes of walking would do wonders for the overall health of your average American.

Pretty much every country except for the USA seems to be a bull shit magic fantasy land. At least when living in any kind of larger city.

VII is one of my favorites! It is quite long, yes, but it’s structured in such a way that you can easily take breaks inbetween mostly self-contained areas.

I’m still planning on going through the entire Trails series at some point, but I’m still debating on whether to play these or the originals.

On one hand, these are probably the most polished games in the series, right? Spoiling me for the rest of it. On the other hand, having played the demo for the first one, I still thought it felt somewhat awkward and clunky. Making me think I might not enjoy the originals.

What’s consensus on this? Does it make sense to start with the remakes?

Just noticed Octopath Traveler 0 is missing, I think it’s releasing today actually.

Although I still don’t know what to think of it, the first trailer gave heavy mobile energy and I never looked further.

I’ve seen this multiple times already, but I just noticed whatever the dude on the right is doing.

Yes! I’ve bought most things already, so I don’t really need the money anymore. However, it’s still fun to collect new cooking ingredients (new crops; or new ways to process them) and to finish the remaining fairy requests (grow x amount of y; unlock better skils etc.).

I didn’t even know there was a New Game option, I never play those and always start fresh instead. However, it does sound interesting in this case!

Had some slower weeks, I’m still on Harvestella. By now, I’ve done pretty much everything except playing the main story past the ‘tutorial phase’ of getting all fairies. I’ve finished most companion stories and really like them, but they aren’t as good as other people hyped them up to be. They often start in a generic way, but not all of them continue like that. There are some good twists and turns and one of them especially dropped a major hint about the upcoming story which got me pretty hyped!

Also played more Pokémon Legends: Arceus. I started the third area this week and still enjoy my journey. However, as so often in these write-ups, I went overboard at the beginning and now a lot of things are kinda trivial. I spent so much time in the first area, I left with a team around Lv 50, mostly filled with alpha Pokémon. The other areas are still fun, there is just no sense of danger anymore. In addition, I think there are too many shared Pokémon between the areas. Since I’ve fully researched them already the first time around, I find myself running past half the things in the newer areas, which is just less fun. But no point in catching a hundred more Starly or Bidoof.

To keep things a bit more fresh, I shelve my entire team each time I reach a new area - excluding my starter.

I love that game! Although I only did Frederica’s ending. It’s the morally correct one, I think, excluding the true ending, of course. I wish we had more games in that style, but there’s only this and Disgea - which dropped the ball with it’s 6 entry. Everything else on Switch is a remaster of some kind.

Anyway, hard more is weird. I’ve started on hard mode, but eventually turned it down. For some battles, you just retry them and collect EXP until you effectively play on a lower difficulty anyway. There just isn’t enough side content to do instead. Curious to see what you think if you decide on trying it.

It think it’s a lot of fun, although I tend to just focus on one thing and then is devolves into a check list. Like doing all side quests, then doing all companion quests, then all dungeons… etc. I just can’t bring myself to not do that when everything is available at once.

They finished ZA within less than a week of release, including the 1k trainer battle quest. I really mean it when I say they holed up and did nothing else for several days. Since then it’s shiny hunting.

Guess I’ll only go for the DLC if those classes/characters are really interesting, then. Or if it’s on sale when I get back to FE:TH.

On my side, more Harvestella.

I’ve automated my farm and started with some animals, which I ignored up till now. They are quite lenient. They cannot die, even if you stop feeding them. It just decreases their friendship, which reduces the quality of their stuff once you start feeding them again.

On top of that, I’ve progressed all companion stories. They are quite, but somewhat generic.

Also started Pokemon Legends Arceus just yesterday. We needed a break from Monster Hunter and it’s my partners favorite game.

Haven’t done much yet, basically just trying to do anything but what the tutorial asks of me. The usual.