The 24a2 engine seems like it adds unnecessary limitations. Just using something like Raylib https://www.raylib.com/ would allow you to create the same simple game just as easily while also allowing you to continue learning and developing more complex games afterward.
As the site for the framework (https://24a2.routley.io/) notes, constraints can lead to creative thinking. As you note, there are plenty of non-constrained options.
True but I still think that too many constraints can hinder creativity, the worst constraint of all is having no options and so no output. I could create something similar that only lets you change the color of 1 dot and only allows you to use 1 key on the keyboard. Those are some mighty constraints and I'm sure you could come up with a few somewhat entertaining games that could be played within those bounds but your creativity would be severely limited by it. A framework like Raylib has its own set of constraints but it provides you with an ample toolkit from which you can create many interesting things. At the same time it doesn't provide you with so much that it becomes overwhelming to learn. It sits in that sweet spot between too simple and too complicated that allows for maximum creativity.
I understand your point, but using one tool doesn’t preclude you from ever using another tool.
For example, you can sketch something in pencil before you ink it; similarly, you can use a simpler constrained framework to prototype a game before you elaborate on it.
Having read https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/wiki, it seems entirely likely it will take longer to get the environment setup than OP spent on his game in total.
Ok but where can the OP go from here with 24a2? They can make a few more dot games and maybe share them but they won't be able to improve upon the initial design much. Eventually they'll have to make the jump to something that can handle rendering images, sound, building an executable etc.
I guess if your goal is to just make a game and then be done with it 24a2 is fine but if you wanted to progress further and make games that people will play you'd be stuck.
I don't understand this line of reasoning. This wasn't a suitable technology to make this game in because it's only good for this game and a few others? So it was good for this game?
The point I was trying to make is that doing game development in a toy framework like this is only good for making trivial games like the one in the article. That may be fine in the author's case since he states that he doesn't have any interest in sound or graphics (or at least feels they are a hindrance to his purpose) and just wanted to try making a game. I didn't really mean to address my comment to the author, it was moreso speaking to the audience of the post and the hypothetical reader who may want to do more than what the author did. Basically I meant to say that using such a framework is a bad starting point for someone who wants to progress in game development. If the author doesn't want to do that, that's great, job done, story over, they can move on with their life.
That's a cool game! I'm having trouble completing it because either I'm color blind or my monitor is acting up or something, because I can't seem to see the "escape" dot at all, even after I lost, so I'm just going blindly in circles. I can see the starting blue dot though!
My first real programs were games. I cannot think of a single piece of code I wrote at that time that wasn't a part of a game.
"Games! Day one!" to paraphrase David Warner from Time Bandits.
I got in to the games industry at the time when a programmer, or a programmer and an artist would turn out a game in two to six months. I grew up, quite literally, in the games industry I spent a good 25+ years making games, and have dipped my toes back in once or twice in the last second or so. Having had that experience from "An army of one" making a game I wanted to make, to "a face in the crowd" of dozens to hundreds making a game that other people want, I bowed out of the industry and went on to other adventures - that usually paid more and came with far better WLB.
For a while, I had a reasonably successful company where I hired old-timers of the industry to build games just like that. We didn't survive the 2008 recession unfortunately but we did have a lot of fun doing it for about six years.
I've since, personally, returned to making those "army of one" games; code, design, art, music, sound. I'm not looking for commercial success anymore. I just have a really persistent itch.
Last night was interesting, at dinner at the King's Head in Santa Monica, I got together with a few other veterans of the industry from SEGA, Activision, and so forth, all of us either retired or approaching that age when we see 10 or so years down the road to "it's all over."
Our careers have all mostly moved on from the games industry because that industry does not favour wisdom, experience, miles on the clock or the desire to call it a day after putting in a 60 hour week.
During the course of dinner the conversation turned to an interesting topic, we all felt we had five or so games still left inside of us.
Not big games.
Not AAA productions.
Not games that required a team of hundreds working grueling hours with a marketing budget that dwarfs the GDP of a small country.
A game that requires a few people to execute on, something small and easily grasped, polished to a standard that a lifetime of experience and craftsmanship brings with it.
And that is what I have been doing for the past five or six years, making a few small games every year, taking a few weeks to scratch an itch, and publishing them here and there. And I also learned, that is what quite a few of my ex-colleagues have been doing too or are looking to do.
Any time there is a tool like this comes along, I look and think "Wow! I can make a game and learn something new!"
