My first time finishing a game! - Thoughts on getting started

[underhandwriter]

Hello everyone! I just posted my first game on Itch.io. It's a very simple, story-driven adventure made in the Bitsy engine.

I've really wanted to get some kind of start in the game dev world for a long time, but every attempt until now has ended with me getting overwhelmed or burnt out before I have anything to really show for it. I've tried jumping into a couple different coding languages, at one point I was taking a computer science course online, I got pretty far into courses for the Godot game engine - and while they were all very useful - I would find myself eventually needing a break from it all. On top of that, I think I was letting the thought of not being skilled enough stop me from making anything at all.

The first time I saw the Bitsy editor, it was the same feeling. I don't have any experience creating pixel art, and I had already convinced myself that I wouldn't be able make anything worthwhile.

After my attempt with the Godot engine, I remembered Bitsy and decided to give it another look. This time I figured if I could use Godot, then why couldn't I make something simpler? I just started making things one small piece at a time. I started by messing around in the sprite editor trying to make some simple items. Some of the things I made ended up inspiring the story direction.

It just kind of dawned on me while I worked on it that I've always admired retro games for the things developers were able to accomplish despite their limitations, and while I typically thought of that in terms of hardware limitations, you can turn your own limitations into a strength as well.

So, while this game I made won't blow anyone's mind, seeing it to the end has given me more confidence to make something bigger in the future, and it's been a lot of fun to work on.

tl;dr - Don't get in your own way, and go make something!

Also, if anyone else reading has made a game in Bitsy, I'd love to play it!