The What
So many game mechanics to choose from, so little time.
I started this project with a game type in mind, an open world MMO—haha no, I’m not that crazy. I want to make a(nother) 3D nonogram game.
Nonograms are picture logic puzzles. Nintendo made a pretty darn addictive one called Picross 3D for the NDS into which I sunk many hours.
I chose Nonograms because I want a well established game mechanic that can scale in difficulty easily. I also want to design it in 3D because why not add another dimension into the mix to spice things up. While I know adding complexity this early on is usually a bad thing to do, one of my goals for this project is to put my experience in 3D design and more importantly ThreeJS to use. Will I regret this? Probably.
It’s a given the platform I’m building this for is browser-based, but I want to make sure I’m tackling both the mobile and desktop build from the get go. No “this experience is best played on desktop” warnings allowed.
I eventually want to wrap a narrative around this game because I’m a sucker for a game with a good narrative (Firewatch), but I’m adding that as a stretch goal (most likely a project of its own).
So to sum it up, I want to make a mobile/desktop 3D Nonogram game.
Stay tuned!
Laura Learns ReactJS - The Why
I’m giving myself a year to build a game in React. Here’s the why.
This isn’t my first time trying to learn ReactJS. It isn’t even my second, but this time I’m setting a goal and a timeline. So why am I stubbornly trying to learn this? Two reasons:
It’ll help me in my career
I’m a product designer and design systems manager. I build out UI component libraries and manage them with a team of designers and engineers. Nearly half of my job is working with engineering, aligning on ways to organize and communicate our component libraries and patterns. Understanding one of the frameworks the engineering team uses will only help me better communicate. I also want to be able to tool for designers and potentially build out/manage a documentation site for our design system.
It’s been a goal of mine to build my own game
I’ve been into games since I was young. On the digital side, my brother and I had nearly every console growing up. When his interest died off, mine only grew. Skip to today, it’s only natural I take my years of playing games and create my own.
That explains the general why of things, by why ReactJS specifically? I have a few years of working knowledge of vanilla JS under my belt. That being said, I’m no pro, but I have a good foundation. Rather than starting from scratch, I’d like to use my existing knowledge and build upon it. Also, everyone’s using React and I want to be one of the cool kids too.
Before I kick things off, let me set up where I’m starting from:
1-2 years experience with vanilla JS
3-4 years knowledge of 3D design and about 2 years working with ThreeJS
Not a clean slate, but I’m hoping my experience will help and not hinder my learnings. The 3D knowledge will come into play as I plan to build this game leveraging ThreeJS.
Okay, here’s the gameplan. I’m giving myself a year to build a game using React. It has to be a working game with level progression and a basic narrative. I’ll be documenting my journey here to keep myself accountable because I know myself and without a deadline, it just doesn’t get done. Like my laundry.
Stay tuned!