I just wrote a post on this -> https://randysworkshop.substack.com/p/game-idea-generation This process has evolved since the video I made for the scuffed course (this one). In there, I really just jumped on the first thing that came to mind, which was a bad idea. Spending wayyyy longer on this process and really diving into fleshing out a few different ideas is key.

I just updated my first game, Mooselutions. The update includes new animations for the player, particle effects when the moose charge, some camera shake to make the moose impacts more juicy, and a huge improvement to the pixel art rendering quality on the Steam Deck. You can read more about it here: Mooselutions - Juice the Moose Update - Steam News

The game actually runs on my iPhone, but I've been doing the core layout design on my Windows gaming PC. It's so nice to own all of your tech and have options like this at your disposal.

My first game, Mooselutions got into a Steam sale in November (Turn Based Carnival) and a local festival in January (Super MAGFest). Since I got in, I've been working with an artist to juice up the game (ergo Juicelutions). Here is some of what I've added thus far: 1. Greatly improved player animations 2. Brighter more lively summer theme 3. A camera shake effect when the moose hits things 4. Particle effects when the moose charges through grass and leaves 5. Particle effects when the moose hits a tree and causes it to shake off some needles

It's been really fun prototyping Rogue Deck Builder for a good chunk of this year. I've learned so much about game design and game development. So here's a quick post-mortem to justify some of the thinking I've been doing lately. It all started when my first game (Mooselutions) got accepted into a local festival. I wanted to present the game in the best possible light, which meant switching off of prototyping and back onto more of a production schedule so I could release a juicier version before November 14th and do the iOS port by Jan 23rd of next year. I immediately noticed a change in my emotions. I was *excited* again. I was presenting something more polished with gameplay I'm more into. I like games with deep emergent gameplay, which Mooselutions has in spades. In short, it felt like Rogue Deck Builder was trying to force deep ideas to happen. It's not that there weren't deeper ideas in the game. They were there, but they were also the parts of the gameplay most players didn't seem to like. People just want to place completed deck sections down in the world. They want it to be simple, convenient, easy. They don't want to think about how rim joists form a structure which supports a deck panel. They really don't want it to be a puzzle, but I do! And then Factorio: Space Age launched. Playing it made me feel like a kid again. I wanted to get up early and play. Imagine that; actual excitement for a new game :-). That experience made me question why I don't feel a similar level of excitement about the game I've been prototyping for months now. So now I'm going to take the core elements from Rogue Deck Builder and prototype an automation game I've wanted to do for a while now. At the heart of it is, literally, a heart. It's an automation game where you have to manage a living circulatory system. I got the inspiration for it a year ago when I had to get heart surgery to repair my mitral valve. It made me realize that everything I am is downstream of a pump. If the pump fails, it all goes.