How is everyone doing! Welcome to my (some number) post! Just to recap what has been happening, I had recently participated in the LibGDX Spring Game Jam. It was a very interesting experience. The time crunch I was put under was immense, and my resulting game showed this. Regardless, I think I did very well to be very honest. Within the span of one week, I was able to make a playable game, even if it is very lacking, and let me tell you that it definitely is! I had so much planned for the jam game but then was worried near the middle of the jam if I can even make a playable game. I had published a post on the introduction to the jam, and let's look at what I said. In this post, I will try formatting a little differently.

My Last Post

Let's see . . . . flipping through my previous posts . . . . ahaa! Very clearly, we can see that I made a promise. 

Hmmmmmmm . . . . not a very good promise it looks like. Instead of beating around the bush, let me be clear. I made a promise last time that I would finish the game up that very weekend, but I didn't follow up on that promise. In fact, I haven't even informed you all about anything as my last post was posted 13 days before this one. Here is what happened.

The jam was supposed to end on Saturday, the 27th, near the end of the day (for me). But, the jam was extended by one additional day, which apparently is common for the LibGDX jams. My game was incomplete by the end of Saturday, and I was busy for the majority of Sunday (for reasons). During the time I was busy, the jam was supposed to end, and so I asked the jam hosts if I could submit my jam game before the end of the day,  meaning an additional few hours. My request was granted, and so I worked on my jam game during the evening of Sunday, the 28th. I barely finished my game (made it working and playable) near midnight. Thus, after the jam had ended, I was pretty exhausted. I wanted a REAL break, away from game dev in general. And so the following week I made absolutely no progress whatsoever, mostly because I was both tired from the last jam, as well as lazy to re-continue working on my earlier game Agility Rush.

Then, spring break came. I had planned a vacation for 4 days, away from where I live, and thus I couldn't work on my game for the first half of spring break. I just returned yesterday at night, and all that leads up to the next day, today, right now. I will require few days to get back into the groove of things, meaning I will need more time to publish my game. I aim to do some last-minute polish and publish my game this weekend. This is not a promise, because that word currently has little meaning. I will do my best to achieve this milestone. But why am I so adamant about publishing it as soon as possible? Read the next paragraph to find out!

What is the plan?

Agility Rush is my very first game. I am still working on it, but it is the first game I started. The game is made using the LibGDX Java framework, which is really nice and fun to work with. However, I have been constantly having doubts about its efficiency as I aim to become a great game dev/designer/programmer, or in short, an Indie-Game Dev. So here is what I have decided: While I love Agility Rush, and wish to further the game more, I will have to stop it. The game was meant to be a playable game to get me started in game dev. It had no plan, with no real intention. Thus, I will try to finish this game as soon as possible so that I can release it, and get some feedback from all of you as well as those who play my game. I will then use this feedback to start working on a new game, which will have a proper structure and design. And I plan on still using LibGDX for this game as well. My intention is to switch to using Unity soon, however, Unity has a steep learning curve, and will require a slow transformation to that game engine. This does not mean I will stop using LibGDX. I wish to use both every now and then, switching from one to the other for different games. This is because LibGDX and Unity both have pros and cons. Let me state them for you, from my perspective. I will continue to update this table as I see more pros and cons for each.

My decision is not final though. There are many pros and cons that I am not aware of. If you notice any, then please comment on them so that I can consider adding them to this table, helping me decide on my engine used in the future, which engine do I use, and how much do I use it compared to others. I am aware that LibGDX is not technically an engine, but for comparison purposes, I am counting it as one.

Now, back to the plan. As soon as I finish up Agility Rush, I will likely not be updating it, at least for a while. There is a possibility I may come back to it in the future, however, the likelihood of such is low. This pretty much wraps up this blog post. Do not expect this to be the last devlog for Agility Rush as at least one more is expected to come. Until then, why not check out the game I made for the LibGDX Spring Game Jam? And while you are there, maybe even check out the other game jam submissions as well. Here is the link to the jam: https://itch.io/jam/libgdx-jam-16. And please leave any feedback, advice, or comments in the comments below. No sources or links section for this post! Have a great day everyone!