The continuing process of making a game

So I decided I am finally going to put my annual membership to the XNA creators club to use, and actually follow through and make a game.

I haven't spent much time programming in a few years, and while I am searching for a Job in the field (as it seems to be the only one I am familiar with) I figured I would refresh myself on the practice, and at the same time (fingers crossed and prayer sent) see if it turns into something else (it has been a dream of mine for some time to make video games for a living).

I dove in, fingers first, hitting the keys vigorously, hoping to refresh my memory of all things programming, and create something meaningful in a short period of time. Four hours later, I have moved passed hello world, and have a sprite on the screen, moving to the input of my controller and spitting out Vector2 data from the thumbstick, floats to tell me how hard the triggers were pressed, and so on and so forth.

It was fun to have my creation start to take shape, albeit what I made was simplistic simplistic, having the discovery that I might actually be able to do this was exciting. The next four hours were not as fun mind you, trying to wrap my mind around what a screen manager does, how it works, and why it's necessary. But I managed to create something that made sense to me, and did what I asked of it, giving me a menu screen, and a means of creating some more complex ideas come to life.

I still have lots of learning to do, and my creation still only consists of one sprite and a lot of text, but I am starting to draw out the game logic structure and set some goals for the project to expand. I will make something. I might not make what I am setting out to make right now, and I may not make any money doing it, but I will at the very least learn something, and have some fun doing it.

Now if I can just stop myself from thinking too far out of scope that I cease to create the noticeable progress needed to keep me motivated. Sticking to the goals you make is often much harder than defining them in the first place. Much more so when you reluctantly set goals that are easier to reach than your mind can dream up to begin with.

Such is the way of widgets that belong to a fidget.