Haunting Echoes of the Past
Like many, I’ve lost count of how many games I’ve started in my spare time. Most? Dead on arrival—smothered by scope creep or just… fading interest. Motivation vanishes, and poof, another graveyard entry.
But this time? I’m whispering to myself, “This one’s different.” (Yeah, I know, famous last words.) But I’ve finally mapped out my personal pitfalls. And I think I’ve got a plan to avoid them.
The Scope Creep Monster
We’ve all been there: I add one cool feature, and bam “Yo, what if I threw in THIS phat idea too?” Like it’s super fun to brainstorm, right? But it really kills projects man. Ideas pile up, nothing gets finished, and you’re left with a bloated mess.
But yeet everyone says it, and maybe it’s time to finally actually try it, prototype, prototype, prototype.
So okay Lesson learned, Prototype fast. Get something playable out there. Test what actually clicks before going off chasing dragons.
Art — The Maw of my Time
Seriously, So much of my time has been sucked away drawing sprites and animations. But sadly they all seem to end up in the trash bin.
Who doesn’t enjoy a breathtaking visual experience? Well, sadly, what I picture in my head and what my hands are actually capable of are two extremely different things.
Previously I always had the idea of fleshing out one mechanic, doing the art for it, and it should be done. But then animations would take hours, nothing would get done, and I’d start working on either other features or other projects completely.
Simplicity first man, this time I’m going to keep it simple. Keep animation frames low, keep the art simple. and just be happy with a few placeholder here and there. It’ll all come together at some point.
New Mentality
After too many flops and struggles with work, I’ve decided I need to get real and change my mentality. What’s really killing my drive, how can I fix this?
Simple scope, Simple art. And just stay laser focused on the gameplay. That’s the new goal.
Plus accountability. That’s why I’m sharing this journey everywhere: this blog, YouTube, Discord, even IRL chats. Feedback to constantly improve, and to create that nagging “people are watching” push to keep going.
Also to maybe even take some new devs that are getting into game dev on a journey. To show them how to think to avoid tutorial hell.
So no more hiding in the shadows. No more solo suffering. Come join me on this journey.
The Spark — Echoes of Doubt
Sitting at work one day, I was really struggling with internal conflicts. Thoughts of Imposter Syndrome and just good old self-doubt.
It can be hard making HTML5 Games, choosing whether to follow the dogma of Web paradigms or Game paradigms. And you’re the bad guy if you ever choose the latter.
All of these constant nagging thoughts made me feel like I needed to do something about it. So I started scratching some ideas down about how I could try and start my own studio.
I knew I needed a simple but engaging core mechanic, I looked to Baba Is You for inspiration. and racked my brain for a while.
I had also recently watched Super Eyepatch Wolfs breakdown of Void Stranger. And feel in love with its depth from simplicity. And it’s mind-breaking concepts.
After a while of brainstorming, I landed on an idea that genuinely resonated with me.
- A puzzle game exploring self-doubt and identity crises.
- One killer mechanic: Hit spacebar to enter echo mode.
- In echo mode, you create an “echo”—it perfectly mimics your actions from that session.
- Chain echoes, replay movements, solve puzzles by layering your past selves.
Imagine recording a path, then watching your echo repeat it while you do something new. Sync them up, break loops, outsmart doubts manifesting as obstacles.
It’s simple on the surface… but the potential for mind-bending layers? Endless.
This is just the beginning. Stick around—prototypes, dev updates, maybe some fails incoming.
What do you think? Could this hook you?