First of Firsts

Hello! If you're reading this, thank you! This project, while it may look small, is actually a first for me in many ways despite a lot of challenges life threw at me while I was making it. I also wanted to share my experience with this as well since I don't know if what I have to share might help anyone else who felt the same as me. That said, this game is a first for me:

• My first game jam entry ever
• The first true "game" that I've built using assets, art, etc... that I created a long time ago for another project
• Learning a game engine that "clicked" with me easily, which for this game was Godot
• Felt like I had actual motivation to see it through vs. a science project that wouldn't see the light of day

The original idea actually was completely different when I first joined. Art, however, was a bit of a challenge since I had a very specific theme in mind. That said, as a way to not only give back, but use what I had to speed things up a little, I decided to resurrect some old pixel art, music, and SFX to build Symbiocats. Since my background mainly is in web development (JavaScript) and I was familiar enough with Python, Godot helped me rapidly build the game with little difficulty. I checked out Godot in the past, but this was the first time I actually sat down and made a legit project out of it. Honestly, its something I plan to use in the future for other ideas to see how far I can take it.

Some challenges did include having to pivot on features and effects I just didn't have time to work on, due to my life situation and other obligations. Having to learn on the fly, while frustrating at times and juggling life, was a good experience since now I have a concrete example of how to do something like this, and even better, in the future. I also struggle with motivation at times so having to overcome personal challenges like that felt daunting. But, I wanted to see this through nonetheless and I'm very happy with the result.

So, for anyone and everyone who's taken the time to at least check the game out, while imperfect, thank you! And also a shout-out to OpenGameArt who helped host the game jam to help make this a reality for me!

-Stratoavis