A fun project and a few months of passion is a good start to a well developed game. However, with school, work, and other stressors on productivity, motivation can be hard to find. After a few months of undivided development I found this true with Computer Combat within the last month. Especially right smack down in the middle of the semester, with senior year thesis work, job applications ( I am open to work! ), and midterms, finding motivation for developing a game on my free time is like finding a needle in a haystack. Devtober helped me find that motivation and inspiration to complete tasks, time manage better, and progress development of Computer Combat farther than I thought I would be able to go. 

I credit the organizers of Devtober and all the participants for inspiring me with your posts and awesome games. I hope all of you had a great month developing.

The Day by Day

I planned most of my days around developing Computer Combat. I found a time that I can work on it everyday at the same time. This was unfortunately after I got home and ate dinner. I usually started development about around 8pm, a bit later than I liked but it worked. Depending on the day and the tasks that I setup for myself I worked on new features and bug fixes for about 2-4 hours, with breaks. In reality I was working on tomorrow's post every night to make sure I was caught up. I found this actually helpful. It allowed me to shift my mindset to allow myself to believe that I had time and not a set deadline, since posting on Twitter after 9pm doesn't promise interactions. 

If I didn't finish a task that night I would attempt to finish it in the morning, and it usually worked. If it didn't I let myself take a break and shift to other responsibilities for that day. Then around midday I would post my devtober update on Twitter. 

Progress

I am proud of the progress I made on Computer Combat this month. I had a goal, that was quite ambitious I do admit, to get a working Computer Combat match work between two live players. Though there are some missing parts like card abilities and some animations that I really wanted but didnt have the time for. On GitHub I closed around 35 issues on the project, some ranged from pixel art to server logic, to game breaking bugs to database work. 

This solo project is pretty large compared to previous projects, especially my most recent game jam submission SPACE JAM. But with deconstructing tasks to smaller tasks, managing time, and motivation I was able to handle such a workload. 

Future Work

The game is nowhere near to what I imagine it to be, but it is still nearing a prototype in which players can actually...play. I have many features and future bugs that will need fixing planned for the rest of the year. I really can't wait to get into Match Data and AI for the game. 

Conclusion

I learned a lot from #devtober this year. I couldn't have done it without some good friends, family, and of course everyone involved and gave me a little heart on Twitter every devtober post. I am grateful that there is a community of intellegent, driven, passionate indie game developers and players that I can be happily a part of. 

Thanks for reading and have a great time developing and playing. 

Timeline

Here is my daily posts for devtober. All of these are found on twitter under this tweet thread.

Day 1

Day 1 of #devtober I created my friend's great suggestion to add information icons to hover over for text field requirements on the login/sign-in page. Maybe you will be signing in to Computer Combat soon? What will be your username? #libgdx #gamedev #indiedev #pixelart

Day 2

Day 2 of #devtober! Along with some backend work, I implemented the beginning of collecting matched components animation. Next I'll be adding animations to use the gutters on the sides of the board, and maybe fixing that match delay #libgdx #gamedev #indiedev #pixelart

Day 3

Day 3 of #devtober! Didn't get to do much more with the collecting components animation for Computer Combat. But I did make some ability art:

Day 4

Day 4 of #devtober! Got that collect components animation done like I promised myself yesterday. I also added the collected components to the player's computer ability power ( notice the increasing blue bar )

Day 5

#devtober day 5! Today I made it possible to click on the player's computer to view its stats in addition to viewing the computer's ability, drawing a card. I made the pixel art of the computer and drawing a card too!

Day 6

#devtober day 6! Not a lot of visuals today. Mainly worked on backend logic and bug fixing. Started implementation for users to use card abilities during their turn. Should be complete soon

Day 7

#devtober day 7! Great progress on use of card abilities. First step complete, getting the user to actually draw a card from their deck with enough computer power! Time to smooth out visual bugs, and add more more animations

Day 8

#devtober day 8! Victory! Collected Components correctly go to their corresponding software's that gain a bit of power from them! I also fixed some visual bugs when matching. 

I'm excited. So much more to do!

Day 9

#devtober day 9! Had a great laugh today when animating the draw card animation. It's important to show the process of animating, especially when watching it gives you a good chuckle. Enjoy this animation blooper, and the final result below :)

#devtober day 9 (continued) The final and polished draw card animation. See the blooper above. Eventually got to a clean card entrance

Day 10

#devtober day 10 Not much UI work today. Mostly server side bugs and prep for tomorrow. Fixed a miscommunication error between server and client.

Day 11

#devtober day 11! Added progress bars to increase when components make it to the software instead of increasing instantly. I also added to the drawing a card animation. Its coming along well!

Day 12

#devtober day 12! Today I added a cards corresponding LED lights to light up when its progress is increased from component matches.

Day 13

Day 13 of #devtober! I'm excited that I've implemented the Open Folder ability for the Directory card. It collects all Storage (blue) components on the board. Can't wait to make more abilities that collect those colorful pieces in a variety of ways

Day 14

Day 14 of #devtober! Today I implemented draining card progress bars after the player uses its ability. Check out this epic combo after using the Directory card's ability. Maybe I should make the ability a bit more expensive to charge

Day 15

#devtober day 15! The halfway mark! Today I made some pixel art for the Flash Drive and Router cards, as well as ability art for the Virus card.

Day 16

#devtober day 16 Today I fixed some server bugs that were preventing some further developement. (Blame AWS)

Day 17

#devtober day 17! Finished designing some abilities and animations. Tomorrow I hope to implement them with the limited time I have during my busy day. Wish me luck

Day 18

#devtober day 18 Today I implemented the Spawn Components Ability. This generic ability spawns components on the board. I can now make specific abilities for cards using it, such as the Infect ability for the Virus card.

Day 19

#devtober day 19! I finished the Spawn Components Ability Animation! Check it out with the Infect Ability

Day 20

#devtober day 20! Today I implemented the Attack Ability. Hopefully I will have the Attack animation implemented tomorrow or shortly after. The attack logic adds a bit of complexity to the move cycle

Day 21

#devtober day 21 The attack animation is implemented but getting the logic for attacking softwares on Bug component matches has proven itself tricky. Continued to work that out today.

Day 24

#devtober day 24 Missed a couple days for Devtober because had a busy weekend. But I can finally say that the Attack animation and logic is finally implemented. There is still more to do with it but check it out.

Day 25

#devtober day 25! Another busy Monday. I had limited time to work on Computer Combat today. But I did start implementing draining stat bars, like health, attack, and defense. Not much else however. Will have more time tomorrow.

Day 26 

#devtober day 26! Today I improved the attack animation by adding the loss of health on attacked cards. Time to add the destroy card animation when it has no health left

Day 27

#devtober day 27 Some weird bug is going on with the attack animation and progress bars. They aren't changing to the expected values after an attack. Investigating now, maybe I'll solve it before the day is over.

Day 28

#devtober day 28! Fixed the bug! Now bugs are on my side! Match Bugs to get your software cards to attack the opponent's and destroy their computer before they destroy yours in my indie game Computer Combat: https://janfic.itch.io/computer-combat

Day 29

#devtober day 29! Oh we are close to the end. I am happy to say that live matches are playable now, which was my goal for Devtober. Now I can't decide if I should add a few more features for devtober or start my postmortem?

Day 30

Had a great fun and productive #devtober. I saw a lot of growth as a developer compared to the last time I did ( attempted lol ) devtober several years ago. Writing my postmortem for such a productive month